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THE    DAY'S    BURDEN 

STUDIES,  LITERARY  &  POLITICAL 
AND    MISCELLANEOUS    ESSAYS 


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THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

STUDIES,  LITERARY  &  POLITICAL 
AND    MISCELLANEOUS    ESSAYS 

BY  THOMAS  M.  KETTLE 


CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

NEW  YORK 

1918 


CONTEN  T  S 

THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

Page 

APOLOGY  xi 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS  I 

ON  CROSSING  THE  IRISH  SEA  IJ 

OTTO  EFFERTZ  :  GENTLEMAN  SOCIALIST  22 

ON  WRITTEN  CONSTITUTIONS  42 
BODY  V.  SOUL  :  FOR  THE  PLAINTIFF,  FRANCIS 

THOMPSON  47 

REVERIES  OF  ASSIZE  57 

A  NEW  WAY  OF  MISUNDERSTANDING  Hamlet  62 

YOUNG  EGYPT  73 

THE  FATIGUE  OF  ANATOLE  FRANCE  77 

INTERNATIONAL   SOCIALISTS  88 

A  FRENCHMAN'S  IRELAND  93 

ON  SAYING  GOOD-BYE  IOI 

MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS 

LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION  IO9 

THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM  I29 

LABOUR  :  WAR  OR  PEACE  ?  I4S 

THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND  175 

A  MAN  TROUBLED  ABOUT  EVERYTHING  I9I 

THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  BEING  NARROW-MINDED  I97 

NOVEMBER  FIRST:  THE  DAY  OF  ALL  THE  DEAD  200 

THE  UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS  203 

V 


The  Day's  Burden  :  studies  literary  and  political, 
appeared  in  1910,  when  the  late  Lieutenant  Kettle  was  a 
brilliant  young  member  of  the  Nationalist  Parliamentary 
Party.  The  book  has  been  for  a  considerable  time  out  of 
print ;  and  its  contentsare  now,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
pages  on  "  Reason  in  Rhyme,"  republished  in  this  volume 
of  collected  essays,  together  with  a  number  of  studies 
contributed  to  the  Press  between  1910  and  the  outbreak 
of  the  war.  In  1912  "A  Man  Troubled  About  Every- 
thing" (Public  Opinion),  and  "  The  Day  of  All  the  Dead  " 
(Freeman's  Journal);  in  1913  "  The  Economics  of  Nation- 
alism "  (Irish  Ecclesiastical  Record),  "  The  Importance  of 
Being  Narrow-minded"  (Public  Opinion);  in  1914  "The 
World  of  the  Blind"  and  "The  Unimportance  of 
Politics"  (British  Review),  "Labour  and  Civilization," 
and  "  Labour  :  War  or  Peace  ?"  recall  the  labour  troubles 
of  1913-14,  and  particularly  the  great  Dublin  strike,  in 
which  Mr.  Kettle  took  so  vigourous  an  interest.  Both 
appeared  in  The  Dublin  Review. 


Vl 


THE   DAY'S   BURDEN 


TO  MY  WIFE 

"  Not  the  sea,  only  wrecks  the  hopes  of  men, 

Look  deeper,  there  is  shipwreck  everywhere  "  : 

So  mourned  the  exquisite  Roman's  rich  despair, 

Too  high  in  death  for  that  ignoble  pen. 

Nero,  his  wrecker,  is  amply  wrecked  since  then, 

And  all  that  Rome's  a  whiff  of  charnel  air; 

But  to  subdue  Petronius'  mal-de-mer 

Have  we  found  drugs  ?  I  pray  you,  What?  and  When? 

Shipwreck,  one  grieves  to  say,  retains  its  vogue  : 

Or  let  the  keel  win  on  in  stouter  fashion, 

And  look  !  your  golden  lie  of  Tir-na-n'Og 

Is  sunset  and  waste  waters,  chill  and  ashen — 

Faith  lasts?    Nay,  since  I  knew  your  yielded  eyes, 

I  am  content  with  sight  ....  of  Paradise. 


IX 


APOLOGY 

The  papers  collected  here  have,  for  the  most  part, 
already  appeared  in  various  journals  and  reviews. 
I  am  indebted  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Morning  Leader, 
the  New  Ireland  Review,  the  Fortnightly  Review,  and 
Messrs.  Maunsel  &  Co.,  for  leave  to  re-publish  them. 
In  all  cases  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  revision 
and  re-writing,  and  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
impress  a  certain  unity  on  the  constituent  materials 
such  as  may  reasonably  be  looked  for  in  anything 
that  calls  itself  a  book.  The  study  of  Otto  Effertz 
appears  for  the  first  time,  and  is,  indeed,  as  far  as  I 
know,  the  only  account  that  has  yet  been  given  in 
English  of  that  bizarre  but  brilliant  pioneer.  Topical 
articles  on  Egyptian  Nationalism  and  International 
Socialism  have  been  included  because  they  give  a 
glimpse  of  movements  which,  so  far  as  one  can 
judge,  are  certain  to  endure,  and  of  leaders  whose 
influence  is  likely  to  grow  rather  than  to  diminish  in 
the  immediate  future. 

For  title  I  have  ventured  to  use  The  Day's  Burden 
because  that  seems  to  me  to  be  the  most  characteristic 
thing  about  the  day,  and  because  all  these  essays  are 
concerned  with  "problems" — economic,  political, 
and  literary.  To  anyone  who,  glancing  at  the  foreign 
names  which  recur  in  these  pages,  asks  with  a  sniff 
of  contempt,  "What  has  all  this  got  to  do  with 
Ireland?"  I  do  not  know  what  reply  to  make. 
Something  like  this,  perhaps:  Ireland,  a  small  nation, 
is,  none  the  less,  large  enough  to  contain  all  the 
complexities  of  the  twentieth  century.  There  is  no 
ecstasy  and  no  agony  of  the  modern  soul  remote  from 
her  experience;  there  is  none  of  all  the  difficulties 

xi 


APOLOGY 

which  beset  men,  eager  to  build  at  last  a  wise  and 
stable  society,  that  she  has  not  encountered.  In 
some  of  them  she  has  even  been  the  forerunner  of 
the  world.  If  this  generation  has,  for  its  first  task, 
the  recovery  of  the  old  Ireland,  it  has,  for  its  second, 
the  discovery  of  the  new  Europe.  Ireland  awaits 
her  Goethe — but  in  Ireland  he  must  not  be  a  Pagan 
— who  will  one  day  arise  to  teach  her  that  while  a 
strong  people  has  its  own  self  for  centre,  it  has  the 
universe  for  circumference.  All  cultures  belong  to  a 
nation  that  has  once  taken  sure  hold  of  its  own 
culture.  A  national  literature  that  seeks  to  found 
itself  in  isolation  from  the  general  life  of  humanity 
can  only  produce  the  pale  and  waxen  growths  of  a 
plant  isolated  from  the  sunlight.  In  gaining  her 
own  soul  Ireland  will  gain  the  whole  world.  Till 
that  Goethe  is  born,  and  the  new  fabric  begins  to 
rise  under  his  inspiration,  we  must  go  on  shovelling 
together  our  trivial  heaps  of  sand  and  rubble. 

That  is  all  I  would  dare  to  say  in  placation  of  the 
contemptuous  sniff.  Originality  is  a  toy  that  no 
goddess  left  in  my  cradle.  My  only  programme  for 
Ireland  consists,  in  equal  parts,  of  Home  Rule  and 
the  Ten  Commandments.  My  only  counsel  to 
Ireland  is,  that  in  order  to  become  deeply  Irish,  she 
must  become  European. 

October  19 10. 


xu 


THE    PHILOSOPHY     OF 
POLITICS  l 

The  subject  I  have  chosen  for  my  paper  is  almost 
an  insult  to  your  intelligence.  I  could  occupy  the 
whole  time  at  my  disposal  by  merely  reading  you  a 
list  of  writers  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
establishment  of  a  science  of  politics,  and  among 
them  you  would  find,  from  Aristotle  downwards,  the 
masters  and  shapers  of  human  thought.  What  then 
must  you  think  of  the  audacity  of  an  attempt,  with 
the  inadequate  time  and  the  infinitely  inadequate 
resources  at  mycommand,  to  give  some  account  not 
merely  of  political  science  but  of  the  philosophical 
ideas  on  which  it  rests  ?  I  know,  however,  that  I 
can  count  on  your  indulgence.  And  I  would  ask  you 
to  accept  the  title  of  this  paper  in  a  large  and  charit- 
able way,  and  to  forgive  its  pretentiousness. 

It  does  seem  to  me  that  a  political  society  like  this 
is  under  the  obligation  of  taking  an  occasional  bath 
in  the  sea  of  fundamental  ideas.  Practical  people 
regard  such  a  proceeding,  it  must  be  admitted,  with 
extreme  distrust.  If  one  desires  an  early  and 
extensive  unpopularity  there  is  no  surer  way  to  it 
than  to  insist  on  analyzing  received  principles. 
Our  mothers,  you  will  remember,  used  to  have  the 
strangest  objection  to  our  taking  their  watches  to 
pieces.  They  rather  doubted  our  competence  to 
put  the  springs  and  wheels  together  again.  Society 
experiences  much  the  same  state  of  mind  with  regard 

1  Presidential  Address  before  the  Young  Ireland  Branch  of  the 
United  Irish  League,  December  1905. 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

to  the  attempt  to  reduce  it  to  terms  of  mere  reason. 
Society  is  right,  but  it  is  only  the  nineteenth  century 
that  has  made  its  attitude  possible.  It  needed  a 
long  development  of  psychological  and  historical 
study  to  make  us  understand  that  reason  is  but  one 
faculty  of  a  many-facultied  being;  that  the  forces 
which  used  to  be  brusquely  dismissed  as  mere  senti- 
ment, mere  instinct,  mere  enthusiasm,  are  inseparable 
elements  of  human  nature.  We  have  come  to  realize, 
in  a  word,  that  life  is  incomparably  vaster,  more 
various,  and  more  complex  than  any  theory  of  it.  I 
dwell  on  this  because  it  has  a  special  bearing  on  our 
subject.  In  approaching  political  science  we  must 
remember  that  it  does  not  profess  to  reproduce  the 
rich  detail  of  life  in  society,  but  stands  to  it  rather 
as  a  chart  to  an  ocean  or  a  mathematical  formula  to 
the  path  of  a  planet.  Still,  if  reason  has  abandoned 
the  tyranny  which  it  once  aimed  at,  its  call  can  none 
the  less  be  denied.  We  must  render  ourselves  some 
rational  account  of  the  forces  by  which  and  among 
which  we  live.  Among  the  greatest  of  these  is  the 
society,  the  political  framework,  in  which  we  are 
born  and  in  which  our  lives  are  cast.  Call  yourself 
a  non-politician  as  loudly  as  you  choose,  you  will 
never  succeed  in  ignoring  politics ;  therefore  of 
necessity  an  attempt  must  be  made  to  understand 
them.  What  is  the  object  of  politics,  what  we  are 
justified  in  expecting  it  to  do  and  what  it  cannot  do, 
what  part  it  should  play  in  the  life  of  the  individual 
modern  man,  and  what  is  the  temper  in  which  a  wise 
man  will  approach  it — these  are  questions  neither 
remote  nor  abstract,  but  questions  that  come 
knocking  at  your  door  and  mine,  and  that  have  to 
be  answered.  All  I  can  hope  to  do  to-night  is  to 
suggest,  in  a  random  and  completely  undogmatic 
fashion,  points  of  view  from  which  politics  may  be 
regarded,  and  principles  by  which  the  efficiency  of 
institutions  may  be  tested. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

When  we  speak  of  politics  as  a  science  we  must 
remember  that  the  word  is  used  with  a  difference. 
The  characteristic  note  of  a  natural  science  is  its 
ability  to  predict  with  mathematical  accuracy.  Such 
prophetic  power  cannot  be  attributed  to  politics. 
The  stupendous  complexity  of  the  subject-matter, 
the  endless  chain  of  action  and  interaction  make  it 
impossible  to  gather  all  the  data  necessary  for 
certainty.  And  then  that  unpredictable  element 
called  free-will  is  constantly  interloping  to  upset 
the  logic  of  your  determinist  drama.  Still  there  are 
large  principles  which  seem  to  approach  the  certainty 
of  physical  laws.  One  can  find  a  ready  illustration 
in  what  we  very  properly  heard  a  great  deal  about 
at  the  Convention  the  other  day,  the  need  for  unity. 
That  without  unity — of  action,  of  course,  for  absolute 
unity  of  thought  and  feeling  we  neither  can  have, 
nor  should  demand — a  political  party  must  be 
ineffective  is  surely  just  as  certain  as  any  law  of 
chemistry  or  physics  ?  The  principle  it  embodies 
is  one  implicit  in  the  constitution  of  every  state, 
namely,  that  the  will  of  the  majority  of  duly  chosen 
representatives  must,  as  regards  action,  prevail  over 
the  will  of  the  minority.  Deny  that  principle  and 
you  cannot  pass  a  single  legislative  Act ;  you  cannot 
levy  a  single  tax.  In  the  long  history  of  English 
insolence  there  is  hardly  anything  else  so  insolent  as 
Mr.  Balfour's  demand  with  regard  to  our  University 
Question.  He  said,  you  will  remember,  that  no  Bill 
could  be  introduced  to  realize  this  reform  unless 
there  was  absolute  unanimity  among  all  interested 
parties  in  Ireland.  Had  he  applied  that  maxim 
consistently  to  English  political  life,  to  political  life 
anywhere,  the  result  would  be  that  no  government 
could  continue  for  twelve  hours.  In  proclaiming  it 
Mr.  Balfour  was  proclaiming  himself  an  Anarchist. 
This  principle,  then,  that  the  will  of  the  majority, 
registered  in  the  due  forms  and  under  the  due  safe- 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

guards  of  individual  freedom,  must  prevail  over  the 
will  of  the  minority  affords  a  good  example  of  the 
sort  of  established  law  we  can  hope  for  in  political 
science. 

I  pass  on  to  the  fundamental  question :  What  is 
the  object  of  politics  ?  Politics  in  its  largest  sense 
includes  the  whole  control  and  management  of 
public  affairs  by  the  government  in  power,  together 
with  the  whoie  process  of  agitation  by  which  the 
masses  of  people  not  in  power  seek  to  influence 
and  alter  the  conduct  of  things.  Now,  if  you  look 
in  the  text-books  you  will  find  that  the  object  of 
government  is  order.  But  what  is  the  object  of 
order  ?  That  is  a  point  which  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered by  the  inflamed  gentlemen  from  the  West 
of  Ireland  who  write  letters  signed  "  A  Disgusted 
Loyalist  "  to  the  Irish  Times  demanding  the  vindi- 
cation of  what  they  call  "  law  and  order."  Law 
and  order  are  not  absolutes,  but  merely  means  to 
an  end.  To  mistake  them  for  ends  in  themselves 
is  to  regard  the  shell  as  the  important  element  in 
the  egg,  the  fence  as  the  important  element  in  the 
field.  The  cry  of  "  Order  for  Order's  sake  "  is  as 
ruinously  foolish  as  that  of  art  for  art's  sake,  or 
money  for  money's  sake.  It  is  for  the  sake  of 
humanity  that  all  these  must  exist.  Behind  order 
there  is  life,  and  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to 
increase  the  sum  and  improve  the  quality  of  life 
that  any  system  of  government  or  scheme  of  positive 
law  is  ethically  justifiable.  If  you  analyse  the  rights 
commonly  regarded  as  essential  and  inalienable — 
the  right  to  property,  to  personal  safety,  to  marriage 
— you  will  find  as  the  common  source  of  them  all 
this  right  to  life.  And  by  life  I  mean  not  merely 
physical  existence,  but  that  rich  human  existence 
which  can  be  had  only  in  community,  that  sort  of 
life  which  Edmund  Burke  had  in  mind  wrhen  he 
described  the  State  as  "  a  partnership  in  all  science, 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

a   partnership   in   all  art,    a    partnership   in   every 
virtue,  and  in  all  perfection." 

You  will  say,  perhaps,  that  this  test  of  govern- 
ment— Does  it  forward  life  ? — is  vague.  Life,  even 
in  the  biological  sense,  has  not  been  defined.  That 
is  perfectly  true.  But  we  do  not  demand,  as  I  have 
said,  in  politics  the  mapped-out  mathematical 
certainty  of  natural  science.  The  average  man 
possesses  a  sufficiently  clear  notion  for  practical 
purposes  of  the  conditions  that  make  life  desirable, 
beautiful,  and  worthy  to  be  lived.  A  government 
is  good  or  bad,  the  order  it  maintains  is  the  dis- 
cipline of  liberty  or  that  of  oppression,  in  so  far  as 
it  promotes  or  hinders  the  wide  diffusion  of  these 
conditions.  I  think  you  will  find  this  test  of  life  a 
helpful  one  in  your  attempt  to  gather  together  in 
some  binding  idea  the  currents  of  effort  that  make 
up  contemporary  Ireland.  Somebody  has  compared 
the  role  of  a  general  idea  to  that  of  a  magnet.  If 
you  bring  a  magnet  into  contact  with  a  glass  plate 
on  which  there  is  a  confused  mass  of  iron  filings  it 
immediately  strains  and  sets  them  into  regular 
and  beautiful  patterns.  The  filings  represent 
the  chaos  of  concrete  facts  that  experience  brings 
thronging  in  on  us,  and  the  magnetic  idea  that 
makes  them  intelligible,  as  it  has  created  them,  is 
that  of  life.  It  is  the  one  justificatory  word  on  the 
tongues  of  the  emigrants  as  they  stream  down  to  the 
ships.  They  "want  to  see  life."  By  no  mere  acci- 
dent is  it  that  the  Gaelic  League  which  started  with 
language  has  gathered  round  it  games,  singing, 
dancing,  and  all  the  arts  of  friendly  intercourse. 
These  all  stand  for  life,  joyously  realizing  itself  under 
benign  conditions.  It  has  been  said  that  all  govern- 
ment exists  to  hang  a  fowl  before  the  Sunday  fire  of 
every  peasant.  Dancing  is  less  necessary  than  eating, 
and  more  beautiful.  It  represents  the  free  energy 
of  a   life   that   has    not  merely  withstood  but  has 

5 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

conquered  the  hostility  of  external  circumstances,  and 
you  will  understand  the  sense  in  which  I  say  that  all 
contemporary  Irish  movements  exist  in  order  to  set 
a  boy  and  a  girl  dancing  at  a  Sunday  ceilidh. 

Analyze  the  agitation  to  break  up  the  grass  ranches 
and  to  give  the.  land  to  the  people  and  to  the  plough 
and  you  will  find  that  it  rests  on  two  assumptions — 
not  very  daring  assumptions  !  The  first  is  that  the 
life  of  a  human  being  is  more  precious  and  worthier 
to  be  forwarded  by  the  State  than  that  of  a  bullock. 
The  second  is  that  if  an  individual  persists  in  so  using 
the  property  which  society  allows  him  to  control,  as 
to  base  his  personal  comfort  and  prosperity  on  the 
misery  and  degradation  of  others,  while  a  cleaner 
way  of  living  is  open  to  him,  then  society  has  both 
the  right  and  the  duty  to  break  his  selfish  monopoly.1 
For  he  has  declared  war  on  society,  and  has  violated 
the  obligations  of  the  social  bond. 

This  test  of  life  changes  our  attitude  towards  posi- 
tive law  in  general.  Take  the  common  description 
of  life  that  it  is  a  "continuous  adjustment  of  internal 

1  Cf.  Naudet,  Premiers  Principes  de  Socioiogie  Catholique.  Bloud  et 
Cie,  Paris,  1904.  P.  31.  "The  Canon  Law,  as  the  great  historian 
Janssen  tells  us,  regarded  property  as  a  fief  granted  by  God.  This 
doctrine,  founded  on  Scripture,  involves  the  evident  consequence 
that  the  owner  of  property  is  responsible  before  God  for  the  use  to 
which  he  puts  his  property.  He  must  not  use  it  after  his  mere 
caprice  ;  and  the  Popes  as  guardians  of  the  law  of  justice  have 
more  than  once  asserted  this  principle  against  owners  who  had 
disregarded  it.  Thus  we  find  Clement  IV.,  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, giving  permission  to  any  stranger  to  break  up  the  third  part 
of  an  estate  which  the  owner  persistently  refused  to  till.  Sixtus 
IV.,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  decrees  that  '  power  is  given  in  future 
and  always  to  all  and  each  to  till  and  sow  in  the  territory  of  Rome 
and  the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter,  in  Tuscany  as  well  as  on  thejlittoral 
of  Campania,  at  the  usual  and  proper  times,  one  third  of  the  un- 
cultivated lands,  to  be  chosen  at  will,  whoever  the  landlord  should 
be.  ..."  It  was  held  sufficient  to  have  asked  the  landlord  for 
leave  to  enter  on  the  lands,  even  though  this  leave  had  been  refused." 
Naudet  cites  Clement  VII.,  Pius  VI.  and  Pius  VII.  as  having 
confirmed  and  renewed  this  insistence  on  the  social  duties  of 
property. 

6 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

to  external  relations"  and  apply  it  to  human  society, 
and,  in  its  light,  law  loses  its  old  iron  absoluteness. 
It  shows  itself  not  as  something  fixed  and  immutable, 
but  as  an  imperfect  transcript  of  the  moral  conditions 
necessary  to  safeguard  life,  changing  continually  with 
these  conditions.  Ethical  principles  are,  of  course, 
invariable;  but  the  formal  enactments  in  which  they 
are  imperfectly  embodied  form  a  system,  developing, 
as  we  hope,  towards  a  fuller  realization.  It  is  the 
thought-climate,  called  in  a  large  way  evolution,  and 
so  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  has 
given  us  this  new  point  of  view.  We  have  applied 
it  to  some  pretensions  of  the  law  courts  and  seen  them 
wither  up;  we  might  also  extend  it  to  some  of  the 
commonplaces  of  popular  thought.  There  is  not,  I 
suppose,  a  more  insistent  and  widespread  demand 
with  regard  to  Irish  questions  than  that  they  should 
be  "finally"  settled.  But  once  grasp  the  idea  of  a 
state  as  a  living,  developing  organism,  and  this 
expectation  of  finality  is  seen  to  be  a  pure  illusion. 
Popular  thought  is  never  altogether  wrong,  and  of 
course  there  is  an  obvious  sense  in  which,  for  example, 
a  comprehensive  measure  of  Home  Rule  might  be 
regarded  as  a  "final"  settlement  of  our  political 
status.  Still,  even  in  this  case,  the  notion  is  illusory 
and  misleading.  Life  is  growth  ;  growth  is  change  ; 
and  the  one  thing  of  which  we  are  certain  is  that 
society  must  keep  moving  on.  Freedom  is  a  battle 
and  a  march.  It  has  many  bivouacs,  but  no  bar- 
racks. You  remember  the  counsel  given  by  the 
serving-man  in  the  heroic  tale  to  Diarmuid  and 
Grainne.  "  In  the  place  where  you  catch  your  food 
you  must  not  cook  it,  and  in  the  place  where  you 
cook  it  you  must  not  eat  it,  and  in  the  place  where 
you  eat  it  you  must  not  sleep."  On  society  an 
analogous  doom — if  you  call  it  a  doom — has  been 
pronounced. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  illusion  of  finality  because  one 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

sees  it  everywhere  producing  a  dogmatic  conserva- 
tism, a  feeling  of  things  done  and  done  with,  than 
which  there  is  no  greater  obstacle  to  progress.  You 
go  to  a  statesman  and  say — "  This  problem  of  the 
Congested  Districts  is  terribly  pressing.  You  must 
bring  in  legislation  to  deal  with  it."  Then  he  looks 
up  his  statute-book  and  says — "Congested  Districts  ! 
Oh,  that  question  is  settled;  we  passed  an  Act  in 
1891."  It  is  much  the  same  as  if  you  were  to  say  to 
a  starving  man — "  Dinner !  Oh,  you  had  a  dinner 
two  months  ago." 

The  object  of  politics  then  is  order,  and  the  object 
of  order   is   to   increase  the  sum  and  improve  the 
quality  of  human  life.     What,  we  may  next  ask,  is 
the  drift  of  current  opinion  as  to  the  means  that 
should  be  used  and  the  psychological  forces   that 
must  be  put  in  harness  in  order  to  this  end  ?    In  other 
words,  what  political  ideas  has  the  experience   of 
the  wonderful  nineteenth  century  left  most  clearly 
defined  ?      There  can    be   but  little  dispute   as    to 
the    answer.      The    two    supreme   facts,   the    two 
shaping    forces    of    the    nineteenth    century,    were 
Nationality   and    Democracy — the    latter    came   in 
direct    lineage   from    the    French    Revolution,    the 
former  brought  first  to  full  self-consciousness  by  the 
reaction    against    the   abstract    cosmopolitanism    of 
'Sg.     Look  to  Irish  history  and  you  will  see  at  once 
that  these  have  been  the  shaping  forces  of  the  last 
century  of  her  life.    But  look  elsewhere  and  you  will 
see  the  same;  you  will  see  that  in  this  as  in  so  many 
other  things  Ireland  has  been  in  the  main  stream  of 
European  history.    The  opinion  of  an  Irish  Nationa- 
list   may  be  suspect.      I   appeal,  therefore,  to   the 
authority   of   Professor    Bury,  formerly   of  Trinity 
College,  now  Regius  Professor  of  History  at  Cam- 
bridge.     He  is  speaking   of  the  impulse  given  to 
historical  studies  by  the  upsurging  of  national  feeling, 
for,  of  course,  a  nation  is  before  all  things  a  spiritual 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

principle  whose  source  and  charter  is  to  be  found  in 
history. 

"The  saying,"  he  writes,  "that  the  name  of  hope 
is  remembrance  was  vividly  illustrated,  on  a  vast 
scale,  by  the  spirit  of  resurgent  nationality  which 
you  know  has  governed,  as  one  of  the  most  puissant 
forces,  the  political  course  of  the  last  century  and  is 
still  unexhausted.  When  the  peoples,  inspired  by 
the  national  idea,  were  stirred  to  mould  their  destinies 
anew,  and  looking  back  with  longing  to  the  more 
distant  past  based  on  it  their  claims  for  independence 
or  for  unity,  history  was  one  of  the  most  effective 
weapons  in  their  armouries;  and  consequently 
a  powerful  motive  was  supplied  to  historical 
investigation."  * 

In  Belgium,  in  Italy,  in  Hungary,  in  Germany, 
in  Norway,  in  Poland,  in  Ireland,  nationality  has 
been  the  great  formative  and  disruptive  impulse  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Whatever  gloomy  mood  we 
may  fall  into  in  the  struggle  for  autonomy  we  have 
certainly  no  justification  for  feeling  lonely !  There 
was  a  school  of  political  philosophy — it  still  lifts  here 
and  there  an  antique  voice — which,  when  it  had 
called  nationality  a  mere  sentiment,  thought  that  it 
had  dismissed  it  from  the  arena  of  practical  affairs. 
That  habit  of  mind  may  have  been  excusable  in  the 

JBury.  An  Inaugural  Lecture,  1903.  P.  13.  That  great  master 
of  common  sense  and  uncommon  sanctity,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
has  his  lesson  for  modern  Imperialism — "  It  belongs  to  the  study 
of  politics  to  know  how  great  should  be  the  magnitude  of  a  state 
and  whether  it  should  embrace  men  of  one  or  many  races  ;  for  the 
greatness  of  a  state  should  be  such  that  the  fertility  of  its  land  is 
sufficient  to  its  needs,  and  that  it  should  be  able  to  repel  violent 
enemies.  For  it  ought  rather  to  be  founded  of  one  race;  some 
oneness  of  nationality,  involving  the  same  manners  and  customs, 
is  that  which  brings  about  friendship  among  citizens  because  of 
their  likeness  :  whence  states  that  were  made  up  of  divers  nations, 
by  reason  of  the  dissensions  that  they  had  because  of  the  diversity 
of  their  customs,  were  destroyed,  since  one  party  joined  with  the 
enemy  for  hatred  of  the  other  party."— Cf.  H.  C.  O'Neill,  New 
Things  and  Old  in  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

eighteenth  century,  but  we  understand  things  better 
now.  We  realize  life  in  its  concrete  richness 
and  man  as  a  complex  of  remembrances,  instincts, 
intuitions,  and  emotional  needs.  The  historical 
studies  of  the  last  century,  the  Romantic  Move- 
ment, and  the  vast  development  of  psychology, 
both  in  formal  studies  and  in  art  of  every  kind, 
especially  the  novel,  have  rehabilitated  that  vast 
area  of  consciousness  which  used  to  be  dismissed 
as  "  sentiment."  There  was  a  time  when  man  was 
conceived  as  an  avaricious  machine.  If  you  found 
anything  in  your  mind  other  than  calculating  selfish- 
ness you  were  outside  the  pale  of  humanity.  But 
now  nobody  need  be  ashamed  to  admit  that  he 
detects  himself  in  an  occasional  generous  impulse. 
Louis  Kossuth  was  saying  the  other  day  that  "  it  is 
in  active  national  sentiment  not  in  political  forms 
that  we  are  to  look  for  the  secret  of  government." 
And  there  is  not  a  Foreign  Office  in  Europe  but 
recognizes  that  where  there  is  an  historic  nationality, 
unexpressed  so  far  in  the  form  of  a  visible  state,  there 
is  a  contradiction  of  human  nature  which  cannot 
last.  You  will  not  ask  me  to  analyze  the  idea  of 
Nationality.  It  has  been  discussed  in  this  country 
for  the  last  nine  or  ten  years  with  an  earnestness 
amounting  often  to  fury,  and  nearly  everything  has 
been  said.  "  The  nation,"  says  Anatole  France,  in 
a  fine  phrase,  "  is  a  communion  of  memories  and  of 
hopes."  You  may  well  find  its  source  in  that  need 
for  self-realization  which  is  also,  in  one  view,  the 
source  of  all  individual  morality.  But  that  is  a 
notion  drawn  from  German  metaphysics,  and  meta- 
physics, if  we  are  to  believe  all  we  read  in  our  weekly 
papers,  is  the  unforgivable  sin.  But  this  I  will  say, 
that  if  you  read  any  one  of  the  treatises  on  politics, 
read  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  by  the  young  gentle- 
men who  afterwards  come  over  to  dragoon  us,  you 
will  find  that  there  is  not  in  the  most  exacting  of 

10 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

them  a  single  test  of  nationality  which  Ireland  does 
not  satisfy.  A  distinctive  language,  a  characteristic 
national  temperament  and  outlook  on  life,  a  history, 
a  sentiment  of  unity  in  the  present,  common 
memories,  common  interests,  a  geographical  area 
large  enough  to  constitute  an  independent  state — is 
there  a  single  one  of  these  elements  that  we  do  not 
possess?  If  you  go  even  further  and  examine  the 
conditions  demanded  by  these  English  writers  to 
justify  rebellion  or  disruption,  adding  to  what  has 
been  said  as  to  the  satisfaction  of  national  senti- 
ment, this — I  quote  from  Sidgwick — "  Some  serious 
oppression  or  misgovernment,  some  unjust  sacrifice 
or  grossly  incompetent  management  of  their 
interests,  or  some  persistent  and  harsh  opposition 
to  their  legitimate  desires,"  you  will  find  on  the 
principles  of  these  English  writers  themselves  that 
an  Irish  War  of  Independence  would  be  to-day 
justifiable  if  it  were  possible. 

Side  by  side  with  Nationality  stands  democracy. 
It  is  impossible  to  define  democracy  ;  it  is  a  principle 
still  unrealized,  an  unfinished  process.  It  has  been 
described  as  "  that  form  of  social  organization  which 
tends  to  develop  to  the  maximum  the  conscience  and 
the  responsibility  of  the  individual  citizen."  This 
description  lays  stress  on  the  central  characteristic 
of  democracy,  the  belief  in  individuality  and  the 
endeavour  to  foster  it.  To  the  feudalistic  governing 
mind  the  citizen,  or  rather  I  should  say  the 
"subject,"  was  an  item,  a  something  little  better 
than  a  chattel,  committed  to  the  care  of  those 
whom,  as  the  old  jurists  said,  Providence  had  placed 
over  him.  The  placing  had,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
been  done  by  the  luck  of  circumstances.  If  a  man 
had  the  wisdom  to  be  born  well,  he  sat  on  the  necks 
of  the  masses ;  if  he  were  born  badly,  his  own  neck 
suffered  for  it.  Such  a  tyranny  as  this,  even  if  it 
were  beneficent,  could  not  live  in  the  atmosphere 

ii 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

of  the  modern  world.  We  have  discovered  that 
nobody  is  wise  enough  or  pure  enough  to  bear  the 
temptation  of  uncontrolled  power,  and  we  are 
endeavouring  as  far  as  possible  to  remove  such 
occasions  of  sin.  The  democratic  spirit  may  be 
said  to  be  more  or  less  expressible  in  two  proposi- 
tions. The  first  is  that  government  should  rest  on 
the  active  consent  of  the  governed.  It  is  this  right 
and  necessity  of  human  nature  that  has  been  behind 
the  demand  for  representative  institutions  from  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  the  end,  from 
the  Paris  barricades  of  1830  and  the  English  Reform 
Bill  of  1832  to  the  Russian  Revolution  and  the 
Women  Suffrage  movement.  The  second  thesis 
of  democracy  is,  roughly,  that  any  one  self-support- 
ing and  law-abiding  citizen  is,  on  the  average,  as 
well  qualified  as  another  for  the  work  of  govern- 
ment. I  should  prefer  to  put  it  that  no  citizen, 
or  section  of  citizens,  is  as  likely  to  conduct  the 
government  for  the  general  benefit  as  the  whole 
body  of  citizens  acting  in  concert.  Wherever  there 
is  a  privileged  class  there  is  corruption,  and  a  cult 
of  sectional  to  the  disregard  of  wider  interests. 
Democracy  will,  of  course,  have  its  governing 
classes,  but  they  will  not  be  fortressed  about  with 
unbreachable  privileges.  If  we  now  turn  to  Irish 
history  it  is  easy  to  see  that  it  is  a  passage  from 
feudalism  to  democracy.  Thus,  when  Mr.  Michael 
Davitt  came  to  write  the  story  of  the  Land  War,  he 
inevitably  called  it  The  Fall  of  Feudalism  in  Ireland. 
Under  the  same  title  you  might  gather  every  stream 
of  agitation,  every  Act  that  could  be  in  any  sense 
called  beneficial,  from  the  Abolition  of  Tithes  and 
Catholic  Emancipation  to  the  Local  Government 
Act.  They  are  all  parts  of  a  process  which  is  shift- 
ing the  centre  of  power  from  privileged,  arbitrarv 
classes  to  responsible,  representative  classes.  It  is 
significant  also  that   in  that  question  most  remote 

12 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

from  current  politics,  higher  education,  Democracy 
has  been  taken  for  the  pillar  of  light.  Everywhere 
the  demand  is  for  a  democratic  University;  and  we 
mean  by  that  not  only  that  the  fees  must  be  low  but 
that  the  civic  fervour  of  the  institution  must  be  high, 
and  that  it  must  be  a  centre  of  creative  democratic 
thought. 

To  speak  of  politics  is  necessarily  to  speak  of  edu- 
cation, at  least  of  education  in  citizenship.  A  few 
words  must  suffice.  Public  opinion  in  this  country 
has  made  up  its  mind  that  its  schools  shall  be  places 
in  which  love  and  reverence  for  the  motherland  shall 
be  fostered.  Democracy  will  teach  in  its  schools, 
as  well,  love  and  reverence  for  the  State.  It  is  the 
fashion  to  disbelieve  in  the  practical  value  of  ideas 
and  enthusiasms,  but  a  democratized  Ireland  will 
understand  human  nature  better.  The  chief 
channel  of  instruction  will  naturally  be  history, 
modern  history.  The  complete  neglect  of  this  is 
the  scandal  of  English  education.  History  is  not 
only  the  true  scientific  method  of  approach  to  social 
problems,  it  is  the  very  substance  of  citizenship. 

"It  is  of  vital  importance,"  writes  Professor  Bury, 
"  for  citizens  to  have  a  true  knowledge  of  the  past 
and  to  see  it  in  a  dry  light  in  order  that  their  in- 
fluence on  the  present  and  future  may  be  exerted  in 
right  directions.     .     .     ." 

And  he  adds — 

"  It  seems  inevitable  that,  as  this  truth  is  more 
fully  and  widely  though  slowly  realized,  the  place 
which  history  occupies  in  national  education  will 
grow  larger  and  larger." 

"In  France,  in  Germany,  in  America,"  writes  the 
Regius  Professor  of  History  at  Oxford,  Mr.  Firth, 
"nineteenth  century  history,  national  and  European, 
has  a  permanent  place  in  historical  studies.  It  is 
not  considered  unfit  for  teaching  or  unworthy  of 
study;  nor   is   it   held   that   historical   teachers   or 

13 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

students  are  incapable  of  studying  it  without  displays 
of  party  feeling."  ! 

So  much  for  what  I  believe  to  be  the  two  main 
ideas  explanatory  of  contemporary  Ireland  as  of 
Europe  in  general.  One  word  seems  to  be  necessary 
as  to  the  limitations  of  politics.  Politics  is  the  science 
of  order:  it  cannot  take  the  place  of  the  other 
human  activities,  but  can  only  keep  them  in  their 
places.  Extravagant  demands  are  sometimes  made 
on  politicians,  especially  in  Ireland.  Because  they 
are  described  as  "  representative,"  people  expect  to 
find  incarnate  in  them  the  whole  national  life  from 
the  making  of  shirts  to  the  making  of  poetry.  But 
politics,  as  such,  is  just  as  much  a  specialized  ac- 
tivity as  brick-laying.  It  is  not  co-extensive  with 
life;  there  are  vast  areas  of  private  life  into  which  it 
would  be  tyranny  for  it  to  intrude.  It  does  not 
claim,  and  you  cannot  ask  it  to  make  shirts  or  poetry. 
Its  duty  is  to  provide  the  conditions  in  which  the 
greatest  number  of  citizens  can  live  happily,  whether 
by  making  shirts  or  by  making  sonnets. 

In  what  spirit  should  one  approach  the  actual  work 
of  politics?  I  speak  only  for  myself,  but  I  think  that 
one  should  take  enthusiasm  for  the  driving  force  and 
irony  as  a  refuge  against  the  inevitable  disappoint- 
ments. "  What  I  need  to  realize,"  says  Spencer, 
"is  how  infinitesimal  is  the  importance  of  anything 
I  can  do,  and  how  infinitely  important  it  is  that  I 
should  do  it."  Might  not  a  politician  choose  a 
worse  motto  than  that  ?  Disillusionment  is  so 
commonly  the  fifth  act  of  political  agitation, 
mainly  because  of  the  illusive  finality  upon  which 
I  have  touched.  But  a  wise  man  soon  grows  dis- 
illusioned of  disillusionment.  The  first  lilac  freshness 
of  life  will,  indeed,  never  return.  The  graves  are 
sealed,  and  no  hand  will  open  them  to  give  us 
back    dead    comrades    or    dead    dreams.      As   we 

lC.  H.  Firth.  A  Plea  for  the  Historical  Teaching  of  History.  P.  17. 
14 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  POLITICS 

look  out  on  the  burdened  march  of  humanity,  as  we 
look  in  on  the  leashed  but  straining  passions  of  our 
unpurified  hearts,  we  can  but  bow  our  heads  and 
accept  the  discipline  of  pessimism.  Bricriu  must 
have  his  hour  as  well  as  Cuchullin.  But  the  cynical 
mood  is  one  that  can  be  resisted.  Cynicism,  how- 
ever excusable  in  literature,  is  in  life  the  last  treachery, 
the  irredeemable  defeat.  Politics,  let  us  remember, 
is  the  province  not  of  the  second-best,  as  has  been 
said,  but  of  the  second  worst.  We  must  be  content, 
or  try  to  be  content,  with  little.  But  we  must  con- 
tinue loyal  to  the  instinct  that  makes  us  hope  much; 
we  must  believe  in  all  the  Utopias. 

If  you  engage  in  politics  in  Ireland,  and  if  con- 
ditions remain  as  they  are,  certain  other  points  must 
be  remembered.  You  would  do  well  to  study  the 
novitiate  through  which  an  idea  passes  before  it  be- 
comes a  law.  It  arises  out  of  the  misery,  and  contains 
in  it  the  salvation  of  a  countryside  ;  the  State  wel- 
comes it  with  a  policeman's  baton.  It  recovers  ;  the 
State  puts  it  in  jail,  on  a  plank  bed,  and  feeds  it  on 
skilly.  It  becomes  articulate  in  Parliament :  a 
statesman  from  the  moral  altitude  of  £5,000  a  year 
denounces  it  as  the  devilish  device  of  a  hired  dema- 
gogue. It  grows  old,  almost  obsolete,  no  longer 
adequate;  the  statesman  steals  it,  embodies  it  in  an 
Act,  and  goes  down  to  British  history  as  a  daring 
reformer.  From  your  own  side  also  there  will  be 
something  to  be  borne.  If  you  cannot  agree  with  a 
colleague  as  to  tactics,  even  though  they  be  but 
minor  tactics,  he  may  found  a  paper,  or  write  a  letter, 
or  a  lyric,  denouncing  you  to  posterity  as  a  traitor, 
red-handed  with  your  country's  blood.  I  see  no  help 
for  it  except  to  take  these  things  as  mere  bye-play, 
decorative  flourishes  on  the  text  of  politics.  After 
all  there  is  the  two-edged  sword  that  will  never  fail 
you,  with  enthusiasm  for  one  of  its  edges  and  irony 
for  the  other.     However  mired  and  weedy  be  the 

15 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

current  of  life  there  will  be  always  joy  and  loyalty 
enough  left  to  keep  you  unwavering  in  the  faith  that 
politics  is  not  as  it  seems  in  clouded  moments,  a 
mere  gabble  and  squabble  of  selfish  interests,  but 
that  it  is  the  State  in  action.  And  the  State  is  the 
name  by  which  we  call  the  great  human  conspiracy 
against  hunger  and  cold,  against  loneliness  and 
ignorance ;  the  State  is  the  foster-mother  and  war- 
den of  the  arts,  of  love,  of  comradeship,  of  all  that 
redeems  from  despair  that  strange  adventure  which 
we  call  human  life. 


16 


ON  CROSSING  THE   IRISH  SEA 

Geography  is  a  prudent  science  :  but  one  day  she 
will  take  risks,  even  the  risk  of  being  interesting. 
She  will  hang  about  the  naked  games  and  gaunt 
outline  of  places  their  due  garment  of  romance. 
When  that  time  comes  it  is  not  a  scientist  but  a  poet 
that  will  be  chosen  to  evoke  the  spirits  of  hatred  and 
tragedy,  of  malice  and  despair,  of  irony  and  disillu- 
sion which  move,  with  un pausing  haste  but  with 
no  rest,  over  the  waters  of  the  Irish  Sea. 

Yet  there  is  no  outer  thing  that  should  awaken 
such  a  mood.  It  is  a  bright,  even  a  radiant  day  as 
we  clear  the  harbour,  which  in  English  is  the  King's 
Town,  but  in  Irish  the  Fort  of  Laoire.  The  sunlight 
as  it  falls  is  shattered  into  a  manifold  glitter  of 
diamonds.  The  soft  purples  and  cloudy  greys  of 
the  Wicklow  hills  shepherd  you  into  the  fold  of 
dreams.  "  A  pleasant  land  of  drowsihead,"  as  the 
first  James  Thomson  would  have  called  it,  with  the 
formal  romanticism  of  his  formal  century.  A  vision 
before  which  the  soul  might  well  forget  its  anguish, 
and  remember  only  its  aspirations.  But  over  it 
there  is  a  shadow  not  of  the  sun's  casting,  the 
shadow  of  history. 

A  chapter  of  the  New  Geography  may  very  well 
open  somewhat  after  this  fashion  :  Ireland  is  a  small 
but  insuppressible  island  half  an  hour  nearer  the 
sunset  than  Great  Britain.  From  Great  Britain  it 
is  separated  by  the  Irish  Sea,  the  Act  of  Union,  and 
the  perorations  of  the  Tory  party.  The  political 
philosophy  of  the  last  of  these  is  even  shallower 
than  the  physical  basin  of  the  first.  Ireland  is  dis- 
covered  from    time  to   time  by  valiant  journalists, 

C  17 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

mostly  of  a  sensitive  temperament.  Their  accounts 
vary.  Ireland  is,  however,  admitted  by  all  to  be 
unprogressive  :  as  witness,  when  it  is  half-past  twelve 
in  London  it  is  only  five  minutes  past  twelve  in 
Dublin. 

The  people  of  Ireland  are  universally  described  as 
absolutely  incapable  of  united  action.  At  the 
same  time  the  political  machine  is  so  monstrously 
efficient  as  to  suppress  all  individual  freedom. 
Observers  are  agreed  that  the  Irish  exhibit  no 
tenacity  of  purpose  or  stability  of  character. 
Indeed,  Froude  explained  the  failure  of  Celtic 
Ireland  to  develop  a  native  drama  by  this  circum- 
stance. No  Irishman — he  argued — has  sufficient 
consistency  of  character  to  carry  him  through  five 
acts :  and  you  cannot  put  a  man  into  a  play  if  he 
insists  on  becoming  somebody  else  at  the  end  of 
every  act.  Infirm  of  purpose  and  frail  of  ethical 
fibre  as  she  is — and  all  her  impartial  enemies  concur 
as  to  the  fact — Ireland  has  for  seven  centuries  with- 
stood the  impact  of  the  strongest  nation  in  Western 
Europe. 

Ireland  has  been  finally  conquered  at  least  three 
times;  she  has  died  in  the  last  ditch  repeatedly: 
she  has  been  a  convict  in  the  dock,  a  corpse  on  the 
dissecting-table,  a  street-dog  yapping  at  the  heels  of 
Empire,  a  geographical  expression,  a  misty  memory. 
And  with  an  obtuseness  to  the  logic  of  facts  which 
one  can  only  call  mulish,  she  still  answers  "  Adsum." 
Her  interdicted  flag  still  floats  at  the  mast-head, 
and,  brooding  over  the  symbol,  she  still  keeps  build- 
ing an  impossible  future  on  an  imaginary  past. 
English  parties  in  turn  wipe  her  for  ever  off  the 
slate  of  practical  politics.  She  remains  wiped  off 
for  a  year  or  two ;  but  as  the  sands  slip  by,  the 
sand-built  policies  crumble  and  collapse.  New 
battalions  loom  up  to  the  right  wing  or  the  left ; 
and   the  Tory  Press  remembers  the  phrase  of  the 

18 


CROSSING  THE  IRISH  SEA 

Confederate  General  who  saw  victory  suddenly 
snatched  out  of  his  hands  by  Meagher's  Brigade : 
"  There  comes  that  damned  green  flag  again  !" 

All  this  might  seem  a  matter  of  racial  pride,  and 
a  sign  of  racial  strength.  But  any  Unionist  can  see 
with  half  an  eye — and  people  are  Unionists  precisely 
because  they  have  only  half  an  eye  to  see  with — that 
it  is  mere  obstinacy.  It  is  motived  by  the  same  folly 
which  leads  a  man  to  waste  his  substance  in  litiga- 
tion in  order  that  he  may  live  for  all  time  as  a 
leading  case.  Ireland  clamours  incessantly  for 
Home  Rule  ;  she  wants  to  sit  in  her  own  armchair 
by  her  own  fireside  and  mind  her  own  business. 
But  the  very  iteration  of  this  demand  is,  to  any  well- 
conditioned  mind,  conclusive  proof  that  it  is  not 
sincere. 

The  unbroken  triumph  of  the  same  program  at 
election  after  election  shows  it  to  be  the  watchword 
of  a  purely  artificial  agitation.  To  give  Ireland  what 
she  asks  for  would  clearly  be  to  promote  discontent 
and  disloyalty.  In  view  of  the  peril  of  foreign 
assault  and  invasion  it  is  an  indispensable  part  of 
military  tactics  that  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
should  be  enemies,  not  friends.  Unless  Irish  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  were  compelled  to  settle  the 
question  of  English  education,  and  English  members 
of  Parliament  compelled  to  settle  the  question  of 
Irish  land  tenure,  the  whole  fabric  of  civilization 
would  be  compromised. 

It  may  very  well  be  that  Ireland,  as  a  result,  is 
the  spectre  at  the  banquet  of  Empire.  But  was  a 
banquet  ever  dramatically  complete  without  a 
spectre?  Lord  Castlereagh's  Act  of  Union  must 
be  upheld,  so  much  wiser  is  it  to  tie  the  parts  of  an 
Empire  together  with  a  thread  of  formal  law  rather 
than  to  let  them  grow  together  in  the  organic  unity 
which  joins  the  main  branch  of  a  tree  to  the  trunk. 
To  be  sure,  Home  Rule  does  not  involve  the  repeal 

19 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

even  of  Lord  Castlereagh's  Act  of  Union,  but  it  is 
the  duty  of  every  loyal  citizen  to  pretend  that  it 
means  complete  separation.  To  tell  the  truth  would 
shame  the  devil,  and  where  would  Imperialism  be 
without  the  devil  ?  As  between  England  and 
Ireland,  therefore, 

Let  wisdom,  friendship,  peace,  and  commerce  die, 
But  leave  us  still  the  politician's  lie. 

These  are,  perhaps,  unpardonable  thoughts.  It 
would  be  better  to  go  and  sit  in  the  smoking-room, 
or  move  about  amid  the  lively  bustle  of  lawyers, 
legislators,  cattle-dealers,  golfers,  journalists,  bat- 
eyed  tourists,  and  hawk-eyed  commercial  travellers 
who  are  doing  their  valiant  best  to  annex  the  Irish 
Sea  in  the  interest  of  that  most  greedy  of  all  the 
Imperialisms,  the  Commonplace. 

They  are  doing  their  best,  but  they  are  not  succeed- 
ing. It  was  Uhland,  I  think,  who  paid  the  Rhine 
boatman  a  double  fare  because  he  had  carried, 
unknowingly,  the  ghost  of  a  dead  comrade.  The 
Company  would  be  rich,  indeed,  if  all  the  ghosts 
that  hurry  restlessly  back  and  forward  across 
the  Irish  Sea  were  amenable  to  the  ticket-office  ! 
Strongbow,  the  first  filibuster,  with  MacMurrough,the 
first  traitor ;  Kildare,  the  masterful  earl  ;  Shane 
O'Neill  going  in  saffron  pride  to  greet  Elizabeth  as 
a  king  greets  a  queen  ;  Sarsfield  passing  to  exile  and 
death  in  France ;  the  highwaymen-bishops  of  the 
eighteenth  century ;  Castlereagh,  O'Connell,  Balfour, 
Parnell  .  .  .  the  very  names  are  an  epic  and  a 
litany  of  desolation. 

But  the  deck  is  beginning  to  experiment  in 
positions  other  than  the  horizontal.  The  grey,  cold, 
sliding  treachery  of  the  sea  comes  out  through  the 
surface  brightness.  One  wonders  if  the  sea  that 
gives  empires  may  not  take  them   suddenly  back. 

20 


CROSSING  THE  IRISH  SEA 

At  all  events,  I  am  going  to  be  sea-sick.  It  will  be 
another  argument  for  Home  Rule.  "The  Channel," 
said  Grattan,  using  the  English  name  for  the  Irish 
Sea,  "  forbids  union,  as  the  ocean  forbids  separation." 
One  should  be  glad  to  be  sea-sick  in  assertion  of  so 
slashing  an  epigram.  To-night  there  will  be  the 
million  globes  of  London  to  look  at,  gleaming  through 
the  fog  like  monstrous  and  sinister  oranges  in  some 
garden  of  life  and  death.  To-morrow  afternoon  we 
shall  be  in  the  House  of  Commons  supping  full  of 
old  calumnies  and  hatreds.  But  when  is  Ireland 
going  to  have  her  chance  ?  When  will  voyagers, 
leaning  on  the  deck-rail,  catch  the  first  purple 
glimpse  of  Wicklow  with  eyes  innocent  of  political 
passion  ? 

1909. 


21 


OTTO  EFFERTZ: 
GENTLEMAN  SOCIALIST1 

Books  have  their  fates;  and  it  can  only  be  an 
unhappy  fate  that  has  prevented  Otto  Effertz'  Les 
Antagonismes  Economiques  from  achieving  a  brilliant 
position  in  the  literature  of  Socialism.  It  is  by  no 
means  his  first  appearance,  and  he  is  very  far  from 
being  a  raw  revolutionary.  As  long  ago  as  1888  he 
made  public  his  novel  and  characteristic  thought  in 
Arbeit  I] fid  Boden.  The  book  was  tendered  as  a 
thesis,  Effertz  tells  us,  to  every  University  in  Ger- 
many, and  was  rejected  not  sans  phrase,  but  on  the 
contrary  with  many  pharses  of  violent  and  even  scur- 
rilous contempt  by  them  all.  The  Social  Democrats 
were  no  better  pleased  with  a  writer  who  claimed  to 
have  shattered  Marxism  with  a  single  tap  of  his  new 
hammer,  aud  none  of  their  journals  so  much  as  re- 
viewed Arbeit  Und  Boden.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
Adere  writing  in  Conrad's  great  Handworterbuch  der 
Staatswissenschaftcn,  hailed  Effertz  as  one  of  the  few 
theorists  of  Socialism  of  whom  the  Economics  of 
the  future  must  take  account.  M.  Charles  Andler, 
who  contributes  a  preface  to  Les  Antagonismes, 
lectured  on  him  in  Paris.  M.  Adolphe  Landry,  whose 
text-book  is  as  widely  used  by  students  in  France 
and  Switzerland  as  that  of  Gide,  ranks  him  con- 
sistently as  the  peer  of  Marshall,  Schmoller  and 
Philipovich.  Nevertheless,  he  hastens  to  add,  this 
original  German  is  practically  unknown,  and  his  work 

lLes  Antagonismes  Economiques.  Otto  Effertz.  Paris,  Giard  et 
Bri&re. 

22 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

has  been  treated  with  contemptuous  silence.  Effertz 
himself  seems  to  ascribe  some  of  his  ill-fortune  to 
the  fact  that  his  first  book  was  written  in  German, 
which  is  a  local  dialect.  French  is  the  international 
language  of  science ;  he  will,  therefore,  with  the  aid 
of  M.  Landry,  publish  himself  in  French,  and  appeal 
to  an  international  jury.  The  new  departure  does 
not  seem  to  have  succeeded.  Effertz  has  been  neither 
condemned  nor  commended  by  that  part  of  the  jury 
which  sits  in  these  countries.  His  book,  although 
issued  so  long  ago  as  1906,  seems  hardly  to  have 
reached  us.  Reach  us  some  day  it  must,  and  to 
bridge  over  the  interval  that  separates  us  from  a 
more  competent  performance  of  the  task  I  venture 
to  give  an  outline  of  the  ideas  of  this  strong,  subtle 
and  adventurous  thinker. 

Effertz  is  a  Socialist,  but  he  wears  his  red  tie  with 
a  difference.  He  is  a  Socialist  because  Socialism  is 
the  only  form  of  economic  organization  that  will 
allow  him  to  be  a  gentleman.  His  theory  holds  out 
to  humanity  the  promise  not  of  a  more  abundant 
table,  but  of  more  delicate  table-manners.  Remem- 
bering a  fact  which  we  are  seldom  suffered  to  forget 
— the  existence,  namely,  of  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw — one 
does  not  go  so  far  as  to  signalize  the  haughtiness 
and  daintiness  of  Effertz  as  representing  a  new  mood 
in  the  mind  of  Socialism.  But  there  is  a  wide  gulf 
between  the  two.  What  to  Mr.  Shaw  is  but  an  elfish 
epigram,  flung  with  wicked  exuberance  at  Suburbia, 
is  to  Effertz  a  basal  belief,  an  ultimate  dogma,  a 
burning  passion.  Under  the  stress  of  its  attack  many 
familiar  lines  of  interpretation  and  of  defence  must 
be  abandoned.  Socialism,  many  of  us  had  found 
comfort  in  saying,  is  a  mirage  of  hunger.  It  is  the 
economic  science,  or  rather  the  economic  poetry  of 
the  poor.  It  is  the  visioned  Fortunate  Islands  of 
the  disinherited.  It  is  the  Sociology  of  anaemia  and 
defeat.    If  the  material  life  of  humanity  is,  in  Kropot- 

23 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

kin's  phrase,  the  conquest  of  bread,  then  popular 
Socialism  is  the  wail  of  those  who  have  been 
shouldered  out  of  the  market-place  with  their  baskets 
unfilled.  In  the  philosophy  of  certain  of  our  unstrung 
capitalists  it  is  something  even  worse.  It  is  the 
Satanic  demand  that  stones  should  be  changed  into 
bread,  in  order  to  sustain  a  population  swarming 
beyond  all  bounds  of  prudence  and  self-control.  "  You 
are  pauperized  by  the  capitalistic  regime,"  cried  out 
Marx  in  effect  to  the  proletariat,  "In  the  name  of 
the  bread  of  which  you  are  defrauded,  Workers  of  all 
countries,  Unite ! "  To  Effertz  this  hunger-Socialism, 
as  one  may  call  it,  is  at  once  unworthy  and  unscien- 
tific. Not  by  bread  alone  do  men  live,  but  by  culture 
and  freedom — freedom,  above  all,  to  speak  the  truth. 
He  stands  for  a  social  ideal  of  four  dimensions  ;  for 
to  Liberie,  Egalite,  Fratemite  he  has  added  another 
watchword,  more  strident  and  enacting  than  any  of 
these,  Dignite.  His  case  against  individualism  is  not 
that  it  breaks  the  bodies  of  the  poor  with  famine,  but 
that  it  defiles  the  souls  of  all  men,  the  rich  as  well 
as  the  poor.  Like  the  aged  lion  in  the  fable  he  suffers 
not  so  much  from  the  pain  as  from  the  indignity  of 
the  donkey's  kick.  Moreover,  he  insists,  with  a  touch 
of  passion,  popular  Socialism  is  dishonest  in  the  pros- 
pect which  it  holds  out  of  illimitable  harvests  drawn 
from  an  earth  so  limited  both  in  area  and  in  fertility. 
His  system  of  Pono-Physiocratic  Socialism  assuredly 
does  not  mean  food  for  all  under  any  circumstances 
of  increase.  It  offers  no  unbroken  round  of  banquets, 
fit  for  Sybaris.  Humanity,  however  wisely  and 
scientifically  organized,  will  find  itself  caught  per- 
petually between  the  Scylla  of  restrained  reproduction 
and  the  Charybdis  of  starvation.  But  if  Socialism 
does  not  promise  a  junketting  Utopia,  what,  then, 
does  it  promise  ?  It  promises,  in  the  horoscope  of 
Effertz,  a  world  in  which  men,  while  declining  to  be 
angels,  will  be  able  to   be   gentlemen.      Liberty — 

24 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

that  is  to  say,  mere  personal  liberty — already  approxi- 
mates to  its  maximun  in  modern  countries;  under 
this  rubric  communized  States  will  have  no  new 
revelation  to  expound.  Equality  cannot  but  widen 
and  greaten  with  the  growing  abundance  of  "goods 
of  culture  "  the  biens  de  culture  which  he  sets  in  such 
antithetical  contrast  to  the  biens  d' alimentation.  The 
general  "  aristocratization  "  of  the  forms  of  social 
life  will  bring  new  kingdoms  under  the  sway  of 
Fraternity.  When  we  are  all  aristocrats  it  will  be 
easy  for  us  all  to  be  brothers.  "  But  the  great  glory 
of  Pono-Physiocratic  Socialism  will  centre  in  the 
complete  abolition  of  all  the  indignities  of  the  present 
system.  A  man  will  no  longer  be  compelled  to 
accept  the  servilities,  the  brutalities,  the  lies,  the 
frauds,  the  treacheries,  the  whole  mass  of  defilements 
and  degradations  which  swarm  in  the  heart  of  our 
capitalistic  society,  and  which  are  forced  on  every 
member  of  it  under  the  penalty  of  starvation  for 
himself  and  his  family."  The  rich  will  be  redeemed 
from  that  sense  of  insecurity  which,  more  even,  and 
far  more,  than  the  appetite  for  actual  enjoyment,  is 
the  impulse  behind  their  unquiet  lives.  The  worker, 
with  trained  hands  eager  to  produce  wealth  for  the 
commodity  of  his  fellows,  will  no  longer  stand  at  the 
factory-gate  begging  work  as  an  alms.  The  employer 
will  be  free,  as  now  he  is  not  free,  not  to  exploit  his 
employes.  The  shopkeeper  will  be  free,  as  now  he 
is  not  free,  not  to  lie  and  cheat.  We  shall  be  able 
at  last  to  cancel  that  dictum  of  Cicero's  which  is 
now  the  universal  charter  of  the  business  com- 
munity !  Nihil  enim  proficiunt  institores  ipsi  nisi 
admodum  mentiantur.  "  It  is  commonly  said,"  writes 
Effertz  in  the  last  of  his  six  hundred  vibrating  pages, 
"  that  the  social  question  is  a  belly-question,  or,  in 
more  aesthetic  language,  a  knife-and-fork  question. 
When  people  preach  Socialism  they  make  their 
appeal  to  the   famishing    and   the   tatterdemalions. 

25 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

The  world  is  agreed  that  a  rich  man  can  be  a 
Socialist  only  out  of  condescension,  or  political 
ambition,  or  ethical  aspiration,  or  simply,  as  a  joke, 
but  never  on  grounds  of  personal  interest.  To  accept 
this  view  is  to  understand  very  poorly  the  essence 
of  Socialism.  Bread  and  the  promise  of  bread, 
there  you  have  the  weakest  point  of  Socialism ! 
Socialism  is  before  all  else  a  question  of  culture  and 
dignity.  When  we  preach  Socialism  it  is  to  the 
dignity  of  mankind  that  we  must  primarily  appeal. 
Gentlemen  of  all  countries,  Unite  !  " 

Such  is  the  ethos  and  inspiration  of  this  strange 
book.  If  Effertz  brings  a  new  temper  to  Socialism, 
he  also  brings  a  new  theory.  He  himself  is  indeed 
urgent  to  disclaim  all  originality ;  his  only  gift  is 
that  of  fertilizing  the  neglected  commonplaces  of 
Economics.  The  professors  of  that  science  have  not 
understood  the  value  of  their  analyses  ;  like  Balaam's 
ass  they  speak  great  words  without  understanding 
what  they  speak.  They  have  a  Cyclopean  power  to 
quarry  huge  blocks  of  stone,  but  the  lyre  of  Apollo 
does  not  sound  among  them  to  uprear  the  walls  of 
Troy.  The  fundamental  truths  of  economic  science 
are  as  old  as  Petty  and  Bernouilli :  they  are 
expounded  in  every  rudimentary  manual  of  the 
subject.  But  there  is  a  curious  flaw  in  such  exposi- 
tions. The  basal  laws  and  problems  are  formulated 
indeed,  but  not  "  sacramentally,"  not  in  sede  materiae. 
This  flaw  Effertz  will  correct,  and  therein  lies  his 
sole  originality.  His  only  other  novelty  is  a  novelty 
of  arrangement.  He  introduces  into  Sociology  the 
dramaturgical  principle.  The  fact  of  antagonism  of 
interest  between  individual  and  individual,  between 
the  individual  and  society,  between  the  present  and 
the  future,  being  ultimate,  we  shall  do  well  to  cast 
our  treatment  of  it  into  the  literary  form  most 
appropriate  to  such  an  order  of  reality.  This  is 
obviously  the  drama,  for  the  essential  note  of  drama 

26 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

is  the  conflict  of  wills.  The  first  section  of  such  a 
Sociology  will  correspond  to  the  Intrigue,  the  deli- 
neation of  interests.  The  second  will  exhibit  as 
Catastrophe  the  clash  in  actual  life  of  one  economic 
interest  with  another.  In  the  third  section,  analogous 
to  the  Intermediate  Chorus,  the  writer  will  proceed 
to  an  ethical  criticism  of  a  conflict,  the  economic 
mechanism  of  which  has  thus  been  exhibited.  This 
merges  into  the  Denouement,  a  discussion  of  the 
legal  and  political  arrangements  by  which  the  lesion 
of  higher  interests  may  as  far  as  possible  be  avoided  ; 
and  our  drama  of  humanity  culminates  in  the  Final 
Chorus,  with  a  summary  of  those  antagonisms  which 
enquiry  shows  to  be  irreconcilable,  and  lamentations 
over  the  incurable  evils  of  life.  The  five  divisions 
may  be  rendered  into  more  usual  nomenclature  as 
the  sciences  of  Pure  Economics  and  Applied  Econo- 
mics, the  arts  of  agitation  and  of  statesmanship,  with 
a  finale  of  philosophy.  The  adequate  handling  of 
this  five-fold  analysis  gives  ample  play  to  the  rich 
and  subtle  mind  of  Effertz.  Mathematician,  psycho- 
logist, pioneer,  dandy,  and  admirable  classicist,  he 
has  a  sense  of  style  and  a  feeling  for  literature 
unequalled  by  any  German  thinker  since  Schopen- 
hauer. Differential  equations  rub  shoulders  with 
dashing  epigrams.  We  plod  with  difficult  steps 
through  pages  of  curves  and  graphs,  and  then  sud- 
denly the  wilderness  of  x  and  y  blossoms  like  the 
rose.  Effertz  is,  as  I  have  said,  classical  in  his 
literary  loyalties  ;  and  nothing  could  exceed  the 
wicked  delight  with  which  he  shows  us  all  political 
economy  lying  folded  up  in  a  couplet  of  Goethe  or 
in  three  threadbare  hexameters  of  Horace.  A 
copious  creator  of  new  terms,  he  invents  one  to 
characterize  himself.  It  is  the  custom  of  authors  to 
publish  books  in  order  to  educate  others:  he  publishes, 
however,  solely  to  educate  himself.  He  is,  in 
scientific  matters,  a  pure  egosophe,    who   expounds 

27 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

his  thought  in  order  that  it  may  be  criticized  and 
thereby  made  perfect.  And  if  he  refuses  to  influence 
opinion  he  is  even  more  urgent  to  repel  the  notion 
that  his  theory  can  lead  to  revolutionary  action. 
University  professors — whose  attitude  towards 
burning  questions  is  ever  that  of  a  cat  towards 
hot  soup — have  ignored  him  because  they  believed 
that  a  writer  who  laid  such  emphasis  on  the  dis- 
harmonies and  antagonisms  of  economic  life  must 
necessarily  be  a  disturber  of  the  peace.  Such  an 
idea  is  absurd.  Effertz  has  a  particular  aversion 
and  contempt  for  bombs  and  barricades.  "  It  is 
only  a  partial  knowledge  of  social  antagonisms  that 
can  lead  men  to  desire  a  revolution.  The  best  way 
to  make  revolutions  unpopular,  and  to  create  a 
sedative  temper  of  reform,  is  to  furnish  a  complete 
picture  of  these  antagonisms."  An  agitator  who 
has  heard  of  only  a  single  "  class-war  "  is  in  danger 
of  believing  that  the  source  of  this  class-war  may 
be  swept  away  for  ever,  and  humanity  definitively 
redeemed  with  the  flame  and  fanfare  of  one  great 
upheaval.  It  is  an  illusion  that  still  exists,  and  that 
must  be  banished.  What  can  be  more  potent  to 
banish  it  than  a  Sociology  which  exhibits  economic 
disharmony  not  as  an  isolated  and  destructible 
fortress  of  privilege,  but  as  a  vast  labyrinth  co- 
extensive with  society  ?  For  men  who  respect 
their  intellects  only  one  honourable  path  is  open, 
the  path  of  peaceful  reform. 

After  such  an  overture  the  fundamental  ideas  of 
Effertz  must  seem  bare  and  simple.  His  system  is 
characterized  by  M.  Andler  as  the  most  vigorous 
attempt  ever  made  to  constitute  a  science  of  Pure 
Economics.  By  this  term  he  understands  the 
analysis  and  interpretation  of  those  economic  facts 
which  exist  independently  not  alone  of  the  special 
juridical  system  of  any  state,  but  also  of  the  pro- 
cesses of  exchange.     Denuded  then  to  its  ultimate 

28 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

skeleton,  economic  life  manifests  itself  as  a  drama, 
which,  like  the  French  stage,  has  its  "eternal  tri- 
angle." Land,  labour,  and  consumption  are  the 
three  apex-points  about  which  all  economies  function, 
be  they  primitive  or  advanced.  The  collaboration 
of  labour  with  land  to  produce  a  utility  is  the  founda- 
tion of  all  systems.  Every  good  contains  a  certain 
quantity  of  labour  and  a  certain  quantity  of  land, 
but  no  good  contains  anything  else.  In  the  metaphor 
of  Petty,  labour  is  the  father,  and  land  is  the 
mother  of  all  wealth.  This  analysis  of  production 
is,  we  may  agree  with  Effertz,  the  most  worn  and 
battered  common-place  of  all  the  text-books.  Every 
theorist  has  seen  it,  but  hardly  one  has  consistently 
believed  it.  To  anybody  who  grasps  it  steadily  the 
dictum  on  which  Marx  builds  his  whole  system 
comes  as  an  amazing  counter-sense.  "  If,  then,  we 
leave  out  of  consideration  the  use-value  of  commodi- 
ties," writes  Marx  in  the  indispensable  first  chapter 
of  Das  Kapital,  "  they  have  only  one  common  pro- 
perty left,  that  of  being  products  of  labour." 

Marxian  Socialism  is  by  this  principle,  the  Pono- 
cratic  illusion,  involved  in  strange  absurdities.  It 
would,  for  instance,  necessitate  the  exchange  of  three 
or  four  bullocks  for  one  good  book ;  since  the  "  labour 
certificates,"  which  are  to  be  the  measure  of  exchange, 
would  show  that  the  named  quantities  of  these  very 
diverse  products  embodied  equal  quantities  of  labour. 
The  ratio  between  literature  and  beef  might  indeed 
be  even  more  favourable  to  the  former  on  the  score 
of  the  superior  skill  of  the  labour  concerned. 
Obviously  commodities  have  another  common  pro- 
perty ;  each  of  them  embodies  a  certain  quantity  of 
land.  In  any  given  process  of  consumption — say 
that  of  bread — we  bite  the  dust  in  an  unsuspected 
sense,  we  are  veritable  eaters  of  earth.  And  the 
earth  being  very  far  from  infinite  this  fact  is  of  domi- 


29 


nant  importance  in  all  economies.  Effertz  confesses 
with  surprise  that  for  once  literature  fails  him. 
While  every  language  has  a  phrase  like  manger  du 
travail  or  manger  dc  la  sueur  in  currency,  he  cannot 
find  either  in  the  verses  of  the  learned  or  in  the  pro- 
verbs of  the  people  any  locution  such  as  manger  de  la 
terre.  He  coins  it  forthwith,  with  an  explanation 
which  affords  such  a  good  example  of  what  one  may 
term  the  conscientious  nastiness  of  his  science  that 
it  ought  to  be  quoted  here  in  its  more  or  less  decent 
veil  of  French.  "  Pour  eviter  les  malentendus 
grossiers,je  dois  faire  remarquer  que  si  je  dis'  manger 
de  la  sueur,  de  la  terre,'  je  ne  parle  pas  en  chimiste; 
je  ne  parle  pas  de  geophagie,  et  je  ne  fais  pas  allusion 
a  la  sueur  materielle  qui  est  melangee  chimiquement 
avec  presque  toutes  les  denrees  coloniales.  Je  parle 
en  economiste  et  je  pense  a  cette  sueur  et  a  cette 
terre  qui  sont  renfermees  metaphysiquement  dans 
les  biens." 

The  relation  of  the  three  elements  engaged  may  be 
expressed  in  mathematical  or  pseudo-mathematical 
form.  The  final  unknowns,  positive  and  negative, 
of  economic  calculation  are  x  =  the  utilities  con- 
sumed by  an  individual  in  the  unit  of  time,  and  y  = 
the  labour  expended  by  the  individual  in  the  unit  of 
time  in  the  acquisition  of  these  utilities.  In  calcul- 
ating the  curves,  in  which  he  forecasts  the  future  of 
mankind,  Effertz  employs  an  armoury  of  some  forty 
auxiliary  symbols.  On  the  technical  side  they  con- 
stitute, indeed,  so  large  a  part  of  his  work  that  his 
use  of  them  ought  to  be  illustrated.  Designating, 
then,  by  w  the  utility  of  a  good,  by  a  the  quantity  of 
labour,  and  by  b  the  quantity  of  land  embodied  in  it, 
we  are  able  to  formulate  an  absolute  value,  not  de- 
pendent on  any  special  regime  or  even  on  exchange. 
This  absolute  value  varies  with  the  quotient,  satis- 
faction: sacrifice.     The  productivity  of  any  exploita- 


30 


Ul  1U    tffLKlZ 

tion,   or   more  generally   of  any  form  of  economic 
organization  being  represented  by  p,\\e  arrive  forth- 

w 

with  at  the  formula^*  = .     To  maximise />,  by 

a  +  b 
weighting  a  and  b  with  appropriate  coefficients,  and 
by  understanding  the  psychological  determinants  of 
w,  is  the  task  laid  upon  all  future  governments.  In 
discussing  further  the  relation  of  a  and  b,  Effertz 
makes  his  sole  claim  to  originality.  He  has  intro- 
duced two  new  principles  into  Sociology,  the  principle 
of  conflict  and  the  principle  of  incitation.  Passing 
by  the  first  of  these  for  a  moment,  I  shall  try  to  ex- 
plain the  second.  All  previous  economists  have 
treated  the  two  factors  of  production  as  co-operating 
forces,  the  resultant  of  which  is  represented  by  a 
diagonal.  But  in  point  of  fact,  Effertz  argues,  the 
true  relation  is  that  of  an  inciting  factor,  labour,  to 
an  incited  factor,  land;  and  the  economy  which 
results  corresponds  not  to  the  diagonal  of  the  par- 
allelogram of  forces,  but  to  what  he  styles  a  decroche- 
ment.  One  who  is  not  an  initiate  in  the  Higher 
Mathematics  had  best  seek  refuge  in  the  original 
"  La  production  est  le  proces  par  lequel  l'incitant 
travail  decroche  une  valeur  d'usage  en  incitant  de  la 
terre."  The  whip,  he  says,  in  a  deliberately  ludic- 
rous image,  is  the  inciting,  the  cab-horse  the  incited 
factor :  you  may  manage  with  a  smaller  horse  by 
using  a  larger  whip ;  but  no  extension  of  the  whip, 
even  to  infinity,  will  compensate  for  the  total  dis- 
appearance of  the  horse.  This  novel  terminology 
and  the  mathemical  exercises  by  which  it  is  supple- 
mented are  not  much  dwelt  upon  by  M.  Landry.  But 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  specialist  in  Mathema- 
tical Economics  can,  with  due  regard  to  his  own 
competence,  ignore  the  first  section  of  Les  Antag- 
onismes.  The  third  of  the  primordial  elements  w, 
or  the  utility  of  goods,  has  for  Effertz  found  its  final 

3i 


formulation  in  Daniel  Bernouilli's  De  Mensara  Sortis, 
published  in  1738.  Bernouilli's  law  contains  for  him 
all  the  truth  and  none  of  the  confusion  of  the  "  mar- 
ginal utility "  theory  of  the  Austrians.  Analogous 
to  the  law  of  Weber  and  Fechner  in  Psycho-Physics, 
it  asserts  that  the  subjective  satisfaction  produced 
by  the  objective  consumption  of  a  given  quantity  of 
any  good  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  quantity  of  the 
good  already  consumed.  Furnished  with  this  key 
to  the  variation  of  needs  and  desires,  and  with  the 
coefficients  representing  skill,  fertility  and  the  like 
which  qualify  a  and  b  in  any  concrete  case,  Effertz 
undertakes  rather  vainly  to  make  his  equations  as 
accurate  as  those  of  Physics.  Before  passing  from 
his  elaborate  analysis  of  exchange  one  ought,  per- 
haps, to  signalize  the  invention  of  the  term  monoone, 
or  monoony,  to  designate  a  form  of  unilateral  com- 
petition, which  is  the  obverse  of  monopoly,  and  is 
almost  as  common.  One  seller  confronting  many 
buyers  gives  us  a  phenomenon  of  monopoly,  one 
buyer  confronting  many  sellers  gives  us  a  pheno- 
menon of  monoony.  For  the  rest  it  is,  perhaps, 
enough  to  say  that  in  Pure  Economics  Effertz  touches 
no  question  that  he  does  not  freshen;  his  discussions 
cast  novel,  though  perhaps  distorting,  lights  on  the 
whole  sub-structure  of  the  science. 

Every  good  is,  as  all  economists  have  noted,  a 
synthesis  of  labour  with  land,  but  the  proportions  in 
which  these  elements  are  combined  vary  over  a  very 
wide  range.  On  closer  scrutiny  there  emerges  a  fact 
which  controls  the  whole  future  of  humanity,  whether 
under  Socialism  or  under  Individualism.  It  is  this: 
generally  speaking  those  goods  which  require  for 
their  production  much  land  and  comparatively  little 
labour  are  articles  of  food,  biens  d' alimentation, 
and  those  which  require  much  labour  and  compara- 
tively little  land  are  instruments  of  culture  or  luxury, 
biens  de  luxe  on  de  culture.     An  instance  already  cited 

32 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

will  serve  here  also — the  contrast,  namely,  between 

b 
bullock  and  books.     The  variations  of  the  quotient — 

a 
involve  many  important  consequences.  The  first  of 
these  is  enunciated  by  Effertz  in  what  he  calls  the 
non-transformability  or  non-interchangeability  of 
forms  of  production.  Any  given  form  of  production, 
that  is  to  say,  cannot  in  general  be  transformed  into 
any  other,  but  only  on  condition  that  the  quotient  b :  a 
of  the  two  is  approximately  the  same.  Effertz  in 
his  exposition  distinguishes,  but  not  quite  clearly, 
between  quantitative  and  qualitative  variations  of 
the  land  engaged  in  production.  Judas,  he  points 
out,  gave  utterance  to  very  feeble  though  very 
popular  Economics  in  complaining  that  the  precious 
ointment  had  not  been  converted  into  food  for  the 
poor.  In  this  case  the  absurdity  is  obvious.  Under 
our  system  of  exchange  you  can  substitute  one  com- 
modity for  another,  and  transfer  the  sin,  if  there  be 
a  sin,  of  luxury  to  somebody  else ;  but  by  no  chre- 
matistic  magic  can  you  tranform  the  first  product 
into  something  so  different  in  nature  as  the  second. 
The  more  plausible  fallacy,  however,  is  that  which 
regards,  not  products,  but  branches  of  production 
as  interchangeable.  This  illusion  beclouds  the 
prophetic  vision  alike  of  the  Malthusian  pessimists- 
and  the  Socialistic  optimists.  The  former  imagine 
that  when  the  pressure  of  over-population  begins, 
every  other  branch  of  production  will  be  transformed 
into  the  production  of  food,  and  that  consequently 
the  debacle  to  which  mankind,  increasing  at  its 
present  rate,  is  in  their  view  irredeemably  committed 
will  have  famine  only  as  its  last  phase.  All  culture, 
all  luxury  will  have  been  thrown  to  the  wolves 
before  their  fangs  come  abreast  of  the  sleigh.  The 
reply  of  Effertz  is  that  if  such  a  crisis  is  to  come,  it 
will    not    end    but   begin    with   hunger.     The   one 

D  33 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

category  of  goods  of  which  there  need  never  be  a 
scarcity  is  that  category  which  demands  a  great  deal 
of  labour,  but  little  land — namely,  goods  of  culture. 
The  Socialists  also,  when  confronted  with  a  familiar 
criticism,  reply  in  terms  of  the  same  fundamental 
error.  Under  your  Socialism,  says  a  critic,  suppose 
that  I  call  to  your  communistic  store  with  a  bunch 
of  labour-notes  and  ask  fer  a  bottle  of  bock.  They 
have  no  bock,  but  they  offer  me  a  copy  of  Marx,  of 
which  there  is  a  superabundance !  What  then  ? 
Nothing  simpler,  reply  the  Socialists.  You  write 
to  the  Minister  of  Production,  Department  of  Trans- 
formations :  he  gives  instructions  to  divert  some 
labour  from  printing  and  publishing  to  agriculture 
and  brewing ;  and  next  season  there  will  be  no 
shortage  of  bock.  But  No!  says  Effertz,  you  are 
working  on  a  groundless  assumption.  You  can 
transform  a  production  of  Das  Kapital  into  one  of 
Harmonics  Economiques,  or  one  of  bock  into  one  of 
milk  or  cider.  But  you  cannot  transmute  a  pro- 
duction, in  which  very  little  land  and  a  great  deal 
of  labour  are  required,  into  one  that  demands  very 
little  labour  but  a  great  deal  of  land.  Ponocratic 
Socialism  will  discover  in  such  a  juncture,  that  by 
founding  its  currency  solely  on  one  of  the  primordial 
elements,  it  has  exhausted  the  other,  it  will  have 
eaten  up  imprudently  its  whole  allowance  of  land. 

In  this  reiterated  sentence  we  come  upon  Eftertz' 
reason  for  positing  antagonism  of  interest  as  an 
ultimate  and  unchangeable  factor  in  human  society. 
Homo  homini  lupus  is  the  law  that  emerges  from 
every  analysis  of  consumption.  Who  touches  this 
book,  said  Whitman,  touches  a  man.  But  with 
Effertz  to  eat  a  potato  is  to  eat  a  man,  or  at  least 
the  potential  existence  of  a  man.  He  finds  remorse 
and  embarrassment  mixed  as  ingredients  in  every 
plate  of  soup.  "  I  cannot  get  rid  of  the  thought  that 
in  eating  I  am  destroying  one  of  my  fellows.     I  say 

34 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

to  myself,  indeed,  that  not  to  eat  would  be  to  destroy 
myself,  and  that  I  am  worth  as  much  as  another. 
But  I  eat  it  with  disgust,  as  if  I  had  found  a  hair  in 
it."  Labour  we  must  also  consume,  and  so  far  forth 
every  consumer  is  forced  to  "  exploit  "  somebody. 
But  at  least  there  need  be  no  remorse  if  one  pays 
his  score  by  furnishing  to  society  as  much  pro- 
ductive labour  as  he  consumes.  In  the  world  in 
which  we  live  this  is  a  difficult  counsel.  So  many 
pleasant  commodities,  so  many  lucrative  productions 
are  possible  to  us  only  on  condition  that  others  shall 
be  given  over  to  death,  servitude,  or  dishonour. 
You  accept,  for  instance,  the  Arab  proverb  that  the 
Earthly  Paradise  is  to  be  found  on  horseback.  But 
since  a  horse  consumes  as  much  earth  as  would 
sustain  three  men,  to  keep  a  horse  is  to  murder  a 
family,  to  keep  a  stable  is  to  maintain  a  sort  of 
perpetual  massacre.  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed  that 
this  sombre  halo  attaches  only  to  articles  of  luxury. 
Fishers  must,  indeed,  be  drowned  in  order  that  a 
rich  woman  may  wear  a  rope  of  pearls,  but  fishers 
must  also  be  drowned  in  order  that  a  beggar  may 
eat  a  herring.  The  shop-girl,  who  wears  imitation 
lace,  and  the  duchess,  who  wears  real  lace,  condemn 
some  of  their  sisters  to  slavery  and  exploitation  with 
the  same  ruthless  certainty.  As  for  dishonour, 
society  has  grown  itself  a  very  rhinoceros  hide  of 
hypocrisies  to  protect  us  from  the  edged  and  miser- 
able facts  which  cannot  be  denied.  You  must  not 
let  your  right  hand  know  what  your  left  hand  does, 
nor  whisper  in  your  drawingroom  what  you  thunder 
in  your  office.  Public  opinion  agrees  to  equate 
honour  with  income,  and  to  employ  between  friends 
the  suaver  synonym.  There  is  a  nice  gradation  in 
these  things  : — 

Mein  Sohn,  o  lern  das  Leben  kennen  ! 
Gar  vornehm  ist  es  Schnaps  zu  brennen  ; 
Bedenklich  schon  ihn  zu  verkaufen, 
Und  ganz-erbarmlich  ihn  zu — saufen. 

35 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

If  there  is,  however,  a  certain  ultimate  antago- 
nism, woven  into  the  fabric  of  reality,  there  are  many 
secondary  antagonisms  which  result  merely  from  the 
property  basis  on  which  contemporary  societies  agree 
to  stand.  In  his  social  pathology  Effertz  proceeds, 
in  his  own  characteristic  way,  upon  certain  ideas  of 
Rodbertus.  Like  the  latter  he  finds  the  main  source 
and  cause  of  economic  disharmonies  in  the  almost 
universal  clash  between  rentabilite  and  productivity. 
Under  our  regime  of  exchange  the  production  of 
commodities  is  governed  not  by  the  needs  of  men, 
but  by  the  fluctations  of  the  market.  The  individual 
producer  obtains  his  maximum  income  in  many  cases 
not  by  maximising  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  restricting 
production.  The  earlier  strategy  of  the  speculator 
in  this  regard  was  brutal  and  elementary:  it  con- 
sisted in  the  material  destruction  of  products.  The 
lesson  taught  by  the  Sibyl — namely,  that  a  monopolist 
can  exact  the  same  price  for  three  as  for  twelve 
articles — was  well  learned  by  Rome.  The  manipu- 
lation of  the  grain  market,  by  the  burning  of 
superabundant  supplies,  was  so  commonly  practised 
as  to  evoke  legislation  providing  severe  penalties  for 
this  crimen  dardanariatus,  as  it  was  named  after 
Dardanarius,  its  inventor.  The  Middle  Ages  found 
themselves  still  confronted  by  the  dardanarius,  and 
burned  him  alive  when  occasion  offered;  and  Effertz 
asserts  that  even  to-day  in  the  East  the  rice  market, 
and  in  certain  Dutch  colonies  the  spice  market,  are 
subject  to  the  same  gross  and  barbaric  methods. 
Modern  speculation  is  more  subtle  and  more  effective  : 
it^  understands  how  to  hold  back,  and  hold  up  sup- 
plies, without  destroying  them.  No  consumer  can 
stretch  out  a  hand  without  coming  against  one  mesh 
or  another  of  the  network  of  quasi-dardanariatus  in 
which  it  has  enveloped  the  world.  This  is  the 
deepest  disharmony,  but  there  are  many  others. 
Present  is  at  war  with  future :  the  wasteful  technique 

36 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

of  American  agriculture,  for  instance,  maximises 
production  for  one  generation,  but  leaves  an  ex- 
hausted soil  to  the  next.  There  is  a  war  between 
true  interest  and  imaginary  interest,  even  for  a  man 
who  has  deliberately  chosen  egotism  for  his  guide : 
even  on  his  own  low  plane  he  is  continually  deluded 
by  our  chrematistic,  modern  habit  of  mind.  Every 
man,  labouring  under  higher  ideals,  bears  about  in 
his  soul  a  far  fiercer  war  between  the  economic  and 
the  gamic  virtues.  He  has  two  soul-sides,  one  to 
cheat,  exploit,  and  subjugate  the  world  with  in  order 
that  the  other  may  shower  luxury  and  advancement 
on  his  household.  The  only  variation  is  between 
that  struggle  in  which  the  object  is  destruction,  and 
that  in  which  the  object  is  domination.  Compe- 
tition between  one  employer  and  another,  or  one 
worker  and  another  within  the  same  trade,  supplies 
an  example  of  the  first.  Its  motto  is  :  Des  einen  Brod 
ist  des  anderen  Tod,  bread  to  one  man  is  death  to 
another.  Conflicts  between  a  capitalist  and  a  labour 
syndicate  exemplify  the  second.  The  watchword  in 
this  case  is  :  Des  einen  Brod  ist  des  anderen  Noth,  one 
man's  plenty  is  another  man's  famine.  In  one  or 
other  of  these  forms  the  fact  of  antagonism  is  written 
in  a  flaming  and  sinister  scribble  over  the  whole  map 
of  our  modern  economy.  The  masters  of  that  econ- 
omy, sniffing  the  gold  coins  in  their  palms,  echo  the 
Caesar's  non  olet.  But  that  is  a  judgment  of  chemistry, 
not  of  ethics.  To  a  mind  once  shaken  out  of  our 
habitual,  dogmatic  drowse  all  money  appears  tainted, 
every  sovereign  stinks.  We  have  created  a  civiliz- 
ation of  great  and  cruel  splendour,  and  written  over 
its  gate  :  No  gentleman  need  apply. 

Out  of  this  base  labyrinth  there  is  only  one  clew 
that  can  be  safely  followed,  that  of  Pono-Physiocratic 
Socialism.  The  weakness  of  popular  Socialism  by 
no  means  lies  in  its  supposed  inability  to  maintain 
production  at  the  maximum.     In  comparison  with 

37 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

our  present  industrial  system  it  offers  a  clear  superi- 
ority, consequent  on  the  removal  of  all  conflict 
between  rentabilitc  and  productivity,  between  lucrative 
and  productive  exploitation.  The  true  and  fatal  flaw 
is  to  be  found  in  the  proposed  mechanism  of  exchange. 
This  flaw  is  now  for  the  first  time  removed.  The 
impossibility  of  the  Marxian  labour-certificates 
having  been  demonstrated,  Effertz  proceeds  to  out- 
line what  Andler  styles  a  bimetallism  of  land  and 
labour.  Under  this  system  all  articles  are  to  be 
double-ticketed,  so  as  to  show  their  cost  in  land  and 
their  cost  in  labour;  and  no  article  is  to  be  sold  in 
exchange  for  wage-certificates  of  one  kind  only.  In 
issuing  land  certificates,  which  are,  so  to  say,  a  free 
bonus  given  to  the  worker  in  addition  to  his  labour- 
certificates,  the  State  will  keep  steadily  before  its 
mind  the  territorial  area  at  its  command,  and  will 
be  able  to  control  the  increase  of  population  and  to 
avert  famine.  It  will  be  able  further,  without  invad- 
ing the  personal  liberty  of  the  citizens,  to  impel 
their  labour,  as  the  need  maybe,  towards  production 
for  the  sake  of  culture  or  production  for  the  sake  of 
sustenance.  The  general  effect  will  be  to  equalize 
the  distribution  of  the  necessaries  of  physical  life. 
This  will  provide — in  accordance  with  the  only 
defensible  statement  of  the  materialistic  interpreta- 
tion of  history — the  negative  conditions  of  culture, 
Its  positive  reality  and  richness  and  the  actual 
distribution  of  biens  de  culture  will  follow  a  law 
determined  by  the  genius  and  ideals  of  individual 
intellects.  On  the  material  side  Pono-Physiocratic 
Socialism  will  give  equality  to  the  equal,  on  the 
mental  side  it  will  give  inequality  to  the  unequal. 
This  accords  with  all  our  experience.  Even  in 
present  conditions  a  capitalist  consumes  little  more 
land  than  a  workman ;  like  Napoleon  he  can  dine 
only  once  in  a  day.  His  main  consumption  is  labour, 
his  main  motive  is  ostentation,  his  main  instrument 

38 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

of  acquisition  is  mere  money  and  the  chrematistic 
illusion.  His  psychology  differs  organically  from  that 
of  the  workman.  "The  worker  perishes  when  he  no 
longer  has  soup  to  eat.  The  capitalist  perishes 
when  he  no  longer  has  Sevres  ware  in  which  to  offer 
soup  to  his  parasites."  Under  the  system  of  Effertz 
both  of  them  will  have  soup,  since  all  men  need 
soup ;  as  for  the  Sevres,  it  can  only  be  acquired  by  a 
citizen  who  is  able  to  supply  society  with  labour  as 
skilled  and  intellectual  as  that  which  produced  it. 
A  larger  hope  for  all  unfolds  itself  in  the  considera- 
tion that  in  a  progressive  nation,  while  the  curve  of 
goods  of  sustenance  no  sooner  climbs  to  its  maximum 
than  it  is  dragged  down  again  by  growing  weight  of 
population,  the  curve  of  goods  of  culture  ought  to 
maintain  a  continuous  ascent  approximating  to  a 
straight  line.  Therein  lies  the  rule  of  life  of  the 
honourable,  and  the  ambition  of  the  wise.  The 
luxury  of  a  Lassalle,  little  though  it  may  dim  the 
brilliance  of  that  splendid  and  reckless  spirit,  com- 
promises the  whole  cause  of  Socialism.  If  you 
would  be  master  of  the  future  you  must  rather  choose 
for  your  pattern,  Spinoza,  who  built  his  great  basilica 
of  metaphysics  on  twopence  a  day. 

Effertz,  with  an  amiable  weakness  not  infrequent 
among  his  countrymen,  admits  that  he  may  well  be 
regarded  as  the  Kant  of  Sociology.  As  Kant  opened 
a  new  path  between  dogmatism  and  scepticism  by 
posing  sacramentally  and  in  sede  materiae  the  question 
of  the  limits  of  attainable  human  knowledge,  so 
Effertz,  by  posing  in  the  same  solemn  fashion  the 
question  of  the  limits  of  attainable  human  happiness, 
opens  a  new  path  between  optimism  and  pessimism. 
He  founds  the  Critical  School  of  Sociology.  The 
fashion  in  which  he  answers  his  own  question  has 
already  been  indicated.  But  in  believing  himself  to 
be  impartial  he  is  deeply  wrong  :  his  place  is  with 
the  pessimists.     No  other  judgment  is  possible  to 

39 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

any  one  who  has  toiled  through  the  grey,  chill,  and 
intricate  galleries  of  his  thought.  In  his  vision,  even 
the  light  counterfeits  a  gloom.  Asking  with  Faust  : 
Was  kann  die  Welt  mir  wohl  gewahren  ?  he  answers 
with  Faust !  Enthehren  sollst  du,  sollst  enthehren. 
With  Schiller  he  declares  that  life  is  error  and 
illusion,  and  that  only  in  death  do  we  lay  hold  on 
reality.  "  Humboldt  writes  somewhere  that  the 
greatest  happiness  possible  to  any  human  being  is 
to  be  born  an  imbecile,  since  only  an  imbecile  can 
live  without  coming  to  understand  the  truth  of 
things.  This  observation  holds  good  in  general, 
but  it  is  specially  applicable  to  the  study  of  society. 
Those  who  have  lifted  the  veil  of  sociological  truth, 
those  who  have  eaten  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  Socio- 
logy, can  never  again  be  happy.  A  veil  was  thrown 
over  the  image  of  Sais,  because  that  image  repre- 
sented— Truth."  It  would  be  easy,  and  quite  true, 
to  say  that  the  pessimism  of  Effertz  results  from  a 
mistake  of  fact,  taken  too  seriously.  High  authori- 
ties can  be  cited  to  show  that  the  menace  of  famine, 
which  obsesses  him,  is  so  remote  as  not  properly  to 
enter  into  the  present  thought  of  humanity.  It 
would  be  easy,  and  quite  idle,  to  observe  that  the 
man  who  analyses  is  lost,  and  that  the  only  counsel 
of  happiness  is  to  feel  feelings  and  enjoy  enjoyments. 
Optimism  and  pessimism  are,  perhaps,  primary 
colours  of  mind,  positive  and  negative  polarities 
which  we  can  only  accept  without  understanding. 
They  are,  it  may  be,  the  day  and  the  night  of  the 
human  spirit,  established  for  an  eternal  contrast  and 
counterchange  ;  and  Effertz  fulfils  the  destiny  of  a 
man  born  under  the  sun's  eclipse.  Optimist  or 
pessimist  matters  little  in  a  life  marshalled  under 
the  trumpet  of  duty :  your  emotions  are  your  own, 
and  you  are  free  to  feel  that  all  the  problems  that 
beset  us  are  insoluble  on  condition  that  you  help  to 
solve  them.     To  this  task  Effertz  has  bent  a  strong 

40 


OTTO  EFFERTZ 

and  subtle  mind.  While  he  has  not  made  Socialism 
more  tolerable  he  has  at  least  made  it  more  acute, 
and  his  contribution  to  Pure  Economics  possesses  a 
high  value,  not  at  all  dependent  on  his  practical 
creed.  Les  Antagonismes  with  its  keen  sense  of  the 
fundamental,  its  harsh  courage,  its  store  of  rich  and 
strange  observation,  cannot  fail  to  count  for  some- 
thing, nor  can  any  economist  afford  to  pass  by  in 
complete  silence  the  system  of  Otto  Effertz,  Gentle- 
man Socialist. 

1910. 


41 


ON  WRITTEN 
CONSTITUTIONS 

I  agree  that  it  is  most  unfortunate  that  we  should  have  to  intro- 
duce at  any  time  a  written  provision  into  an  unwritten  constitution. 
(Hear,  hear.) — Mr.  Haldane  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Mr.  Haldane  is  a  formidable  rather  than  a  popular 
speaker,  an  authority  but  not  an  inspiration.  It  is, 
of  course,  a  question  of  personality.  He  looks  like 
a  composite  photograph  of  six  German  philosophers, 
with  a  varnish  of  Renan,  and  that  is  not  a  bad 
beginning.  But  that  singular  voice  of  his  which 
comes  piping  out  of  rotundity  is  too  thin,  light,  and 
metaphysical  ever  to  be  a  trumpet  of  democracy. 
It  is  in  vain  that  all  men  concede  him  the  aureole 
of  omniscience.  It  is  in  vain  that  the  House  rejoices 
to  see  in  his  radiant  presence  a  refutation  of  the 
epigram  in  which  Ecclesiastes  declares  that  increase 
of  knowledge  means  increase  of  sorrow.  He  stirs 
the  imagination  to  pleasant  pictures.  To  me,  he  is 
always  some  friar  of  the  Ingoldsby  Legends  lilting 
black-letter  Statutes  and  Gothic  ideologies  to  the 
music  of  a  penny  whistle. 

But  with  all  that  blithe  omniscience,  he  remains 
formidable  rather  than  effective.  His  speech  of  the 
other  night,  from  which  the  sentence  at  the  head  of 
this  essay  is  quoted,  ran  counter  to  the  sense  of 
his  own  party.  It  was  delivered  with  a  sort  of  taut 
rectitude,  and  received  in,  what  is  called,  courteous 
silence.  But  that  particular  sentence  was  greeted, 
as  it  always  is  greeted  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
with  a  regular  musketry-rattle  of  "  Hear,  hears."  It 
seems  to  me  not  inapt  to  the  times  to  analyse  these 
"  Hear,  hears." 

42 


WRITTEN  CONSTITUTIONS 

This  prejudice  against  written  constitutions  is, 
beyond  doubt,  one  of  the  best-established  super- 
stitions of  English  politics.  Every  law  student, 
nurtured  on  that  masterpiece  of  romance,  Dicey's 
Law  of  the  Constitution,  has  in  his  day  written  essays 
in  praise  of  the  spontaneous  and  elastic  system  under 
which  we  are  supposed  to  live.  He  has  been  taught 
to  believe  that  every  Continental  jurist  looks  with 
envy  and  despair  from  his  own  miserable  paper- 
guarantees  of  freedom  to  this  organic  body  which 
has  grown  with  the  growth,  and  strengthened  with 
the  strength  of  the  British  nation.  And  somehow 
it  is  suggested  that,  as  Lohengrin  had  to  disappear 
on  being  forced  to  give  his  name  and  address,  so  the 
magic  of  the  English  constitution  would  disappear 
if  it  were  written  down.    Hence  these  "  Hear,  hears." 

Now  I  wish  to  submit,  and  by  no  means  respect- 
fully, that  this  traditional  view  is  little  better  than 
stately  nonsense.  Continental  jurists  do  not  envy 
England.  They  say:  "  Truly,  my  friend,  the  British 
constitution  would,  without  doubt,  be  admirable. 
But,  alas  !  it  does  not  exist."  The  writing  down  of 
custom  and  practice  is  not  a  misfortune,  but  a  most 
happy  achievement.  And  in  dealing  with  England 
you  are  dealing  not  with  an  unwritten,  but  with  a 
badly  written,  constitution.  This  last  point  demon- 
strates itself.  How  do  you  go  about  to  prove  the 
provisions  of  your  unwritten  constitution  ?  By  an 
appeal  to  Magna  Charta.  But  Magna  Charta  is  a 
document,  not  a  custom.  By  an  appeal  to  the  "  In- 
demnity of  Parliament  "  of  1407,  to  the  Resolution 
of  1640,  to  the  Resolution  of  1671,  to  the  Resolu- 
tion of  1678.  These  are  strange  elements  to  appear 
in  an  unwritten  constitution.  Take  away  the  scribe, 
the  Commons  clerk,  and  the  printer,  and  neither 
Indemnity  nor  Resolution  would  exist  or  operate 
to-day. 

The    amusing    truth    is    that    this    myth    of  an 

43 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

unwritten  English  constitution,  with  its  whole 
virtue  residing  in  the  fact  that  it  was  unwritten, 
was  invented  by  an  Irishman.  Edmund  Burke 
invented  it  because  it  happened  to  give  him  a  good 
debating-point  against  the  French  Revolution,  But 
why  should  our  radical  legatees  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution cling  to  it  as  tenderly  as  to  a  memory  of  their 
childhood  ?  They  ought,  on  the  contrary,  to  say  : 
"  Since  so  much  has  been  written,  let  us  write  the 
rest,  and  write  it  clearly." 

One  has  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  Simon 
de  Montfort  had  a  certain  weakness  for  unwritten 
constitutions,  but  that  was  only  because,  in  all  pro- 
bability Simon  de  Montfort  did  not  himself  write  or 
read  with  any  comfort.  But  the  whole  colour  of 
the  [times  has  changed.  Writing,  which  in  those 
far-off  days  was  the  special  magic  of  a  small  caste, 
is  the  common  form  of  modern  democracy.  Before 
the  Print  Age,  to  rely  on  documents  rather  than  on 
custom  would  have  been  esoteric.  Since  the  Print 
Age,  to  rely  on  custom  rather  than  on  documents  is 
mere  antiquarian  pedantry. 

The  two  opposite  mistakes  have  this  in  common  : 
they  are,  both  of  them,  modes  of  keeping  govern- 
ment separated  from  the  dust,  the  tumult,  and  the 
heartiness  of  common  life.  That  is  the  aim  of 
Toryism  ;  and  Tory  constitutionalists  like  Mr. 
Dicey  are  singing  in  the  key  of  their  policy  when 
they  sing  the  praises  of  tacit  agreements,  accepted 
conventions,  and  the  other  elements  of  unwritten 
constitutions.  But  when  Mr.  Haldane  joins  the 
chorus,  he  is,  I  submit,  engaging  in  high  treason 
against  those  two  born  Progressives,  the  pen  and 
the  printing-press.  The  pen  in  old  days  was  the 
jousting  lance;  the  Press  in  these  days  is  the  armoured 
Dreadnought  of  Radicalism. 

There  is  nothing  peculiarly  English  in  this  dread 
of  documents.      It  is  a  characteristic  of  all  primi- 

44 


WRITTEN  CONSTITUTIONS 

tive  societies.  You  have  one  form  of  the  super- 
stition in  the  Arab  who  expects  to  be  cured — 
and  often  is  cured! — by  rolling  a  piece  of  paper  with 
a  doctor's  prescription  on  it  up  into  a  ball  and 
swallowing  it.  You  have  another  in  the  contempor- 
ary farmer  who  cannot  be  induced  to  keep  accounts. 
He  prefers  to  work  on  an  unwritten  constitution, 
"like  his  father  before  him."  The  result  is  that  when 
he  gets  to  the  Bankruptcy  Court  he  has  to  go  with- 
out even  the  poor  consolation  enjoyed  by  the  rest  of 
us — namely,  an  exact  knowledge  of  how  he  got  there. 
Within  the  field  of  law  itself  the  whole  movement  is 
from  custom  and  the  spoken  word  to  Statute  and  the 
written  word.  If  not,  why  is  it  that  when  you  have 
made  a  contract  over  the  telephone  you  immediately 
dictate  a  letter  embodying  its  terms,  and  send  it  off 
by  the  evening  post  ? 

The  same  thing  holds  true  of  industry  and  com- 
merce. Everywhere  the  formula,  the  diagram,  the 
blue  drawing,  the  visible,  written,  permanent  word 
have  triumphed.  In  commerce,  to  take  an  example 
from  history,  Venice  owed  her  greatness  partly,  no 
doubt,  to  geography,  but  largely  also  to  book-keeping. 
Venice  held  the  Golden  East  in  fee  because  her 
merchants  were  the  first  to  abandon  the  old  unwritten 
constitution  of  hand-to-mouth  trading  in  favour  of 
double-entry  book-keeping.  Her  flaming  pageant, 
in  which  life  and  art  mingled  their  frontiers  insepar- 
ably, was  organized  by  the  glorious  clerks  who  wrote 
down  her  accounts  in  a  large,  legible  hand.  The 
splendour  of  Titian  was  nothing  more  than  the 
flowering  of  a  ledger. 

Toryism  has  imagined  the  vague,  unwritten  regime, 
which  is  its  opportunity,  as  a  natural  and  organic 
growth.  But  change  the  image.  Say  instead  that 
it  is  like  music-hall  patter,  made  up  as  one  goes 
along.  Say  that  it  is  like  an  extempore  speech,  and 
that  extempore  speeches  are  always  bad.     Say  that 

45 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

it  is,  so  far,  the  mere  nebula  and  protoplasm  of  free- 
dom to  which  this  age  must  give  clear  articulation 
and  definite  form.  All  the  tides  are  flowing  in  that 
direction.  Within  the  last  ten  years  England  has 
made  constitutions  for  Australia,  for  the  Transvaal, 
for  the  Orange  River,  for  United  South  Africa.  It 
is  time  that  she  made  a  Constitution  for  herself, 
guarding  liberty  with  a  quantitative  formula.  And 
that  will  help  us  all  to  join  in  making  a  Constitution 
for  Ireland. 

igio. 


46 


BODY  v.  SOUL 

For  the  Plaintiff  :  Francis  Thompson 

Francis  Thompson  is  known  to  us  as  perhaps  the 
most  wastefully  abundant  imagination  of  the  present 
day.  He  has  taken  the  sun  for  patron,  and  all  his 
poetry  welters  with  the  sun's  fervour  and  fecundity. 
They  are  in  his  very  style  and  wordy  vesture,  that 
imperial  style  of  his  into  which  he  has  adopted  purple 
Latinities  as  aptly  as  the  Church  has  adopted  the 
stateliness  of  the  Roman  paenula.  But  we  must  be 
on  our  guard  against  his  splendours ;  we  must  not 
let  them  betray  us  into  construing  his  work  as 
mere  literature.  One  fears  that  some  delusion  of 
the  kind  has  captured  many  of  those  who  praise  him. 
They  have  praised  him  as  a  lord  of  language,  a 
tyrant  of  images,  and  it  has  hardly  occurred  to  them 
to  search  out  the  spirit  behind  the  grandiose  cere- 
monial. It  is  possible,  it  is  even  certain,  that  many 
readers  of  such  a  poem  as  The  Hound  of  Heaven 
have  exulted  in  its  tidal  flux  without  taking  it  to 
mean  anything  in  particular.  But  that  is  not  the 
colour  of  the  poet's  own  mind.  He  has  never  spoken 
for  the  sake  of  speaking,  but  always  because  he  had 
something  to  say.  "  What,  after  all,"  says  Brune- 
tiere,  "  is  poetry  but  a  metaphysic  made  manifest 
through  sensible  images  ?"  Great  poetry  surely  is  ; 
if  not  a  criticism,  it  is  a  vision  of  life,  of  the  structure 
and  basal  laws  of  life.  When  a  man's  eyes  have 
been  once  opened  the  common  day  flames  and 
vibrates  with  bladed  chariots.  The  most  insignifi- 
cant object  or  experience  stands  vested  with  endless 
relations,  or  rather  there  is  nothing  that  can  any 
longer  be  called  insignificant.     The  lightest  caprice 

47 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

of  love  has  its  metaphysical  implications,  and  to 
salute  a  primrose  is  to  proclaim  a  philosophy.  We 
all  understand  this,  or  at  least  our  wise  memories 
do,  in  their  choice  of  what  to  reject  and  what  to 
retain.  That  poetry  alone  lives  in  us  which  is  so 
great  that  it  has  forgotten  to  be  poetic.  We  think 
of  its  sincerity,  its  absolute  truth,  or  what  other 
word  we  grasp  at  to  describe  what  cannot  be 
described,  not  of  its  technical  deftness  or  even 
mastery.  A  something  has  come  upon  and  trans- 
muted it,  it  shines  with  the  light  of  glorification. 
Francis  Thompson  has  always  understood  this. 
Painting  the  veil  of  life  with  colours  dipped  out  of 
the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun,  he  has  known 
that  nothing  was  of  any  account  save  what  lay 
behind  the  veil,  the  spiritual  interpretation  that  can 
never  be  wholly  expressed.  Earth  and  all  the 
business  of  earth  have  been  to  him  at  once  a 
spectacle  and  a  sacrament.  His  work  belongs  less 
to  literature  than  to  mysticism.  Do  we  not  think 
of  it  as  of  something  essentially  hieratic,  full  of 
costly  spices,  brought  out  of  the  East,  of  figured 
chasubles,  and  full  of  the  mysteries  of  grace  ? 

It  was  necessary  to  bring  all  this  back  to  mind  in 
order  to  induce  the  mood  in  which  the  little  book 
before  us  must  be  considered.1  For  it  is  no  casual 
bye-product  of  the  writer's  mind,  as  might  possibly 
be  suspected  from  its  appearance  in  a  series,  very 
aptly  called  "  The  Science  of  Life  Series."  It  is 
thorough  Thompson.  The  author  has  simply  picked 
out  a  certain  drift  of  thought  which  lies  implicit  in 
all  his  poetry,  and  supported  it  by  instances  and 
considerations  drawn  from  many  quarters.  Such  a 
prosifying  of  intuitions  has  an  interest  quite  apart 
from  its  subject  matter.  It  helps  to  dispel  the 
notion  that  poetry  comes  irresponsibly  out  of  the 

1  Health  and  Holiness.    A  Study  of  the  Relations  between  Brother 
Ass,  the  Body,  and  his  Rider,  the  Soul.     By  Francis  Thompson. 

48 


BODY  v.  SOUL 

air,  and  not  reflectively  out  of  the  stuff  of  everyday  ; 
and  it  shows  the  supreme  reasonableness,  the  gross 
commonsense,  of  mysticism.  But  we  must  not  stray 
aside,  though  it  were,  like  the  Crusaders,  to  capture 
Constantinople.  The  book  is  simply  a  brief  srudy 
of  the  terms  prescribed  by  ascetical  tradition  to 
keep  the  peace  between  those  ally-enemies,  Soul 
and  Body,  with  a  plea  for  a  new  Concordat  to  meet 
new  conditions.  Mr.  Thompson  is  on  the  side  of 
the  body;  in  the  interests  of  the  spirit  itself  he 
demands  a  more  clement  regime  and  never  did 
cause  rejoice  in  an  abler  advocate.  He  has  the 
incommunicable  gift  of  the  phrase,  the  phrase  that 
is  like  a  key-stone  to  knit  together  fabrics  of  expe- 
rience, like  a  cavalry-charge  to  drive  an  argument 
home.  The  task  of  summarizing  him  is  therefore 
extremely  difficult,  and  I  shall  try  to  do  no  more 
than  convey  in  general  terms  the  point  of  view  from 
which  he  justifies  and  ennobles  Brother  Ass. 

In  so  far  as  he  pleads  for  a  mildening  of  the 
discipline  of  the  religious  orders  we  have  no  concern 
to  follow  him.  Some  have  already  relaxed,  others 
are  in  the  train  of  relaxing  their  first  austerity  ;  and 
there  must  always  be  some  that  will  preserve  it  to 
be  a  refuge  for  those  virile  and  passiouate  souls  who 
thirst  for  brimmed  measures  of  expiation,  and  are 
able  to  bear  them.  "  The  weltering  problem  of 
secular  religion,"  is,  as  the  writer  says,  quite  enough 
for  us.  Take  the  unheroic,  modern  man,  with  all 
his  aches  and  pains,  and  ask  what  is  religion  to 
make  of  him.  What  ascesis  must  be  adopted  so 
as  to  make  him  an  instrument  capable  of  divine 
melodies  ? 

For  the  soul  is  to  the  body,  as  the  breath  is  to  the  flute, 
Both  together  make  the  music,  either  marred  and  all  is  mute. 

And  first,  how  does  this  modern  body  stand  in  its 
internal   self?     Surely,   as  Mr.  Thompson  says,  it 

e  49 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

is  "  an  etiolated  body  of  death."  The  nerves  of 
the  twentieth  century  have  gone  bankrupt.  Life 
has  become  too  elaborate  and  too  exacting  for  them; 
they  have  gone  down  under  the  iron  rod  of  erudition 
and  the  whip  of  practical  labour.  The  age's  char- 
acteristic cry  is  the  cry  of  disease.  Men  go  abont 
making  public  confession  of  their  ailments,  or, 
delivered  from  them,  gather  disciples  to  the  gospel 
of  the  perfect  digestion.  Patent  medicines  are  in- 
vested by  their  sellers  with  an  all-sufficiency  that 
would  have  made  Paracelsus  blush  for  his  modesty. 
Commissions  are  appointed  to  enquire  into  Physical 
Degeneration.  The  army  authorities  cry  out  that  it 
is  impossible  to  find  recruits  who  are  even  good 
enough  to  be  food  for  powder.  Schools  for  Physical 
Culture  multiply,  in  England  at  least,  with  a  rapidity 
which  illustrates,  as  even  the  three  hundred  religious 
sects  did  not,  that  great  people's  genius  for  dissension. 
No  alert  man  has  time  to  consider  anything,  save 
what  he  shall  eat  and  what  he  shall  drink,  and 
wherewith  he  shall  be  clothed.  We  go  about 
creepily  conscious  of  the  iniquities  of  our  livers,  and 
of  the  freaks  of  our  subliminal  selves.  For  alike 
from  the  physical  side  and  from  the  mental  come 
physicians.  Christian  Scientists,  Hypnotists,  Will- 
Developers,  Faith-Healers — it  is  beyond  human 
power  to  name  the  innumerable  brood.  There  is 
an  association  in  America,  whose  members  are 
pledged  to  spend  an  hour  every  week  wishing  fellow- 
members  good  health  and  good  fortune.  The  annual 
subscription  is  only  a  dollar,  and  this  will  be  returned 
if  within  a  year  one  does  feel  appreciably  better,  and 
obtain  a  "  rise." 

It  is  a  Danse  Macabre,  with  an  interfusion  of  the 
crudest  farce.  But  it  is  difficult  to  find  much  relief 
in  the  humorous  mask  of  it.  That  mask  drops  off, 
and  abandons  us  to  something  not  far  from  terror. 
Cerebral  physiology,  psychiatry  as  it  is  pursued,  not 

50 


BODY  v.  SOUL 

in  shilling  treatises,  but  in  the  schools,  begins  to 
disclose  more  fully  the  interrelations  of  mind  and 
body ;  and  the  awful  delicacy  of  the  instrument  on 
which  we  play,  its  complex  fallibility  comes  near 
overwhelming  us.  It  is  something  we  have  rea 
about  in  the  text-books,  how  "a  brain-fever  changed 
a  straight-walking  youth  into  a  flagitious  and 
unprincipled  wastrel.  And  recently,"  adds  Mr. 
Thompson,  "  we  had  the  medically-reported  case  of 
a  model  lad,  who,  after  an  illness,  proved  a  liar  and 
a  pilferer."  Or  it  is  somebody  we  have  known, 
flaming,  impetuous,  who  was  pushing  on  by  forced 
marches  to  his  goal ;  and  then  his  outraged  body 
turned  traitor,  and  the  world  had  come  to  an  end  for 
him.  The  brain  has  become  the  theatre  of  a  tragedy 
which  is  continually  renewed.  "  How  remote  we 
are,"  cries  out  Guyau  in  his  poignant  speech  "  from 
the  naive  perception  of  the  primitive  world  which 
located  the  soul  in  the  breast,  or,  it  may  be,  even  in 
the  stomach  !  It  is,  as  we  kuow,  the  braiu  that 
thinks,  it  is  the  brain  that  suffers,  it  is  the  brain  that 
throbs  with  the  torment  of  the  Unknown,  it  is  the 
brain  that  is  signed  with  the  sacred  wound  of  the 
Ideal,  it  is  the  brain  that  quivers  under  the  beak  of 
the  winged  and  ravening  intellect.  In  the  moun- 
tains of  Tartary  the  traveller  sometimes  sees  a  strange 
animal  leap  panting  by  in  the  greyness  of  the  dawn. 
The  great  eyes,  strained  wide  with  suffering,  are 
those  of  an  antelope;  but  as  the  hoofs  thud  by,  the 
ground  beneath  trembling  like  a  heart  in  agony,  two 
huge  wings  are  seen  wildly  beating  to  and  fro  above 
the  head  which  they  seem  to  lift  up  and  on.  The 
antelope  dashes  madly  down  the  winding  valley, 
leaving  a  red  trail  on  the  rocks,  staggers,  falls,  and 
the  two  great  wings  soar  up  from  the  antlers,  dis- 
closing the  eagle  which,  with  talons  sunk  deep  in  the 
skull,  had  been  devouring  the  brain  and  the  life  of 
the  antelope."      The   parable  would  come  with  a 

5i 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

familiar  air  to  Mr.  Thompson,  for  it  is  obvious  that 
either  from  great  sympathy  or  from  sharp  experience 
he  knows  all  these  secrets  of  the  prison-house.  He 
is  cognisant  of  lives  that  have  become  a  dread 
Rosary  in  which  there  are  only  sorrowful  mysteries. 
Has  not  he  himself  written  of  one  who 

Paced  the  places  infamous  to  tell, 

Where  God  wipes  not  the  tears  from  any  eyes  ? 

He  comes  in  this  book  to  write  of  these  things  in 
plain  prose,  to  consider  how  they  can  be  wrought  up 
into  religion,  and  whether  sanctity  may  not  have  in 
it  a  tonic  quality.  The  demand  which  he  makes  of 
the  life,  whether  of  the  saint  or  of  the  rest  of  us,  is 
simply  that  it  shall  live.  "  Holiness  energises.  The 
commonest  of  common  taunts  is  that  of  'idle  monks,' 
'lazy  saints,'  and  the  like.  But,  most  contrary  to 
that  superficial  taunt,  a  holy  man  was  never  yet  an 
idle  man  ....  and  a  saintly  could  never  be  an 
effete  world."  But  I  could  not  do  justice  to  his 
thought  without  quoting  in  full  those  proud,  trumpet- 
pages,  in  which  he  celebrates  the  "  incidental  great- 
ness "  of  the  saints  when  they  turned  half-disdainfully 
to  secular  pursuits — the  lyric  majesty  of  the  Prophets, 
the  Confessions  of  Augustine,  the  Hymn  to  the  Sun 
of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  the  incomparable  prose  of 
St.  Francis  de  Sales.  The  problem  with  us  all,  then, 
is  to  evoke  from  the  federation  of  body  and  soul  the 
fullest  stream  of  energy,  and  to  turn  it  to  the  highest 
ends ;  and  to  do  this  we  must  respect  the  laws  and 
the  limitations  of  both.  The  body  is  like  a  wick 
immersed  in  the  oil  of  the  spirit — it  was  Heine's 
image — and  "though  the  oil  can  immensely  energize 
and  prolong  the  life  of  the  wick,  it  is  on  that  cor- 
poreal wick,  after  all,  that  the  flame  of  active  energy 
depends."  How  then  is  our  end  to  be  accomplished? 

Not  by  the  heroic  maceration  of  the  first  or  the 
middle  ages.    The  ascesis  of  these  days,  transmitted 

52 


BODY  v.  SOUL 

to  us  in  the  discipline  of  the  Orders,  was  framed  for 
men  of  robuster  mould  and  unspeakably  less  sensi- 
tive nerves.  Their  obstacle  was  that  of  opulence ; 
they  served  God,  as  they  foreswore  Him,  with 
wasteful  thoroughness.  Our  obstacle  is  that  of 
poverty.  Onr  ancestors  put  out  their  follies  at  com- 
pound interest  and  we  are  reaping  the  harvest. 
The  human  frame  has,  Mr.  Thompson  believes,  under 
this  burden  and  under  the  complications  of  modern 
life  suffered  a  radical  diminution  of  sheer  vital  power. 
No  faculty  has  increased  except  the  faculty  of 
suffering,  for  in  the  elaboration  of  its  nerves  it  has 
become,  as  it  were,  soaked  in  mind.  It  cries  out  not 
for  a  curb  against  the  excess  of  its  passions,  but  for 
the  energy  to  be  passionate  at  all,  "Merely  to  front 
existence,  for  some,  is  a  surrender  of  self,  a  choice  of 
ineludibly  rigorous  abnegation."  Surely  then  we 
must  treat  our  bodies  after  another  fashion  than  that 
of  old  if  we  are  to  make  them  fit  receptacles  for 
sanctity?  Mr.  Thompson  thinks  so,  and  he  has  dis- 
covered a  wise  director  of  souls,  the  late  Archbishop 
Porter,  S.J.,  who  thought  with  him.  "Better  to  eat 
meat  on  Good  Friday,"  writes  the  Archbishop,  "than 
to  live  in  war  with  every  one  about  us.  I  fear  much 
you  do  not  take  enough  food  and  rest.  You  stand 
in  need  of  both,  and  it  is  not  wise  to  starve  yourself 
into  misery."  And  he  prescribes  Vichy  and  Carlsbad 
against  a  visitation  of  evil  thoughts.  It  is  an  ascesis 
no  less  than  the  other,  and  no  less  difficult.  We 
must  study  to  take  our  bodies  with  that  shrewd  and 
half  humorous  gravity  which  we  find  in  nearly  all 
the  wise,  and  to  rule  by  obeying  them.  "  That  the 
demon  could  have  been  purged  from  Saul  by  medi- 
cinal draughts,"  writes  Mr.  Thompson  in  a  sentence 
worthy  of  Sir  Thomas  Brownet  "  were  a  supposition 
too  much  in  the  manner  of  the  Higher  Criticism." 
But  Dryden  tells  us  that  whenever  "  he  had  a  poem 
to  write" — divine  tradesman — he  choose  that  method 

53 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

of  depurating  his  spirit.  It  is  hardly  a  point  to  dwell 
on.  But  let  us  put  an  end  to  the  old  boycott  of  the 
body.  Let  us  be  tender  and  thrifty  of  its  forces.  In 
the  strange  commerce  of  spirit  and  matter,  a  holiday, 
prudently  taken,  may  be  not  only  better  than  a 
half-done  duty,  but  better  even  than  a  wandering 
prayer. 

Such  is  the  drift  of  Health  and  Holiness,  and  no 
one  who  has  any  appreciation  of  the  grounds  on 
which  it  rests  will  be  likely  to  dispute  the  conclusion. 
As  against  the  practice  of  certain  Orders  it  may  be 
a  necessary  protest ;  and  there  is  no  head  of  a 
convent  or  college  (so  long  engaged  in  the  great 
Intermediate  conspiracy)  but  will  profit  by  reading 
it.  We  laymen  must  look  to  ourselves,  and  the 
Church,  as  we  know  her,  is  amply  indulgent.  She 
does  not  debilitate  us  with  fasts  and  penances.  What 
is  of  far  deeper  interest  than  these  special  applica- 
tions of  it  is  the  noble  philosophy  which  glimpses 
through  the  book.  The  temper  of  Plotinus,  who  was 
so  shamed  of  his  body  that  he  always  refused  to  dis- 
close the  date  or  place  of  his  birth,  possesses,  of 
course,  a  relative  truth,  but  it  has  been  far  too  domi- 
nant within  the  Church.  We  have  forgotten  that 
the  Scholastics  built  psychology  on  the  compositum 
Immanwn,  the  dual  unit  of  soul  and  bod}-.  We  have 
forgotten  that  the  body  is  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  or  remembered  it  only  at  catechism  time. 
But  so  it  is,  and  in  the  light  of  this  interpretation 
the  trivialities  of  every-day  shine  with  an  unsuspected 
poetry.  It  is  an  interpretation  confirmed  by  all  our 
fairest  instincts.  Most  of  us  have  had  moments  when 
sensations  of  which  we  are  commonly  a  little  ashamed 
lost  their  supposed  grossness,  when  a  cup  of  milk 
drunk  among  the  mountains  had  in  it  a  lyric  ecstasy, 
and  the  least  spiritual  of  the  senses  was  transfused 
with  spirit.  I  do  not  speak  of  those  experiences 
which  Coventry  Patmore  touched  with  the  rapture 

54 


BODY  v.  SOUL 

of  his  vision ;  but  in  his  poem  To  the  Body  the  whole 
essence  of  Health  aud  Holiness  is  to  be  found.  As  men 
come  back  to  the  simplicities  of  life  their  minds  grow 
more  habitable  tc  thoughts  like  these.  The  growing 
nausea  of  cities,  the  desire  to  live  in  the  nearer  inti- 
macy of  air  and  earth,  the  yearning  for  physical 
health,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  are  all  symptoms  of 
a  veritable  rehabilitation  of  the  body.  What  could 
be  more  appropriate  than  that  a  poet  should  come  at 
this  moment  to  confirm  the  indispensable  truth  amid 
many  extravagances,  and  to  Christianise  what 
otherwise  tends  to  the  most  naive  Paganism  ? 

Mr.  Thompson  has  his  vision  of  the  future.  "  The 
remedy  for  modern  lassitude  of  body,  for  modern 
weakness  of  will,  is  Holiness.  .  .  .  Of  the  potency, 
magisterial,  benevolent,  even  tyrannous,  which  goes 
forth  from  the  spirit  on  the  body,  we  have  but  young 
knowledge.  Nevertheless,  it  is  in  rapid  act  of 
blossoming.  Hypnotism,  faith-healing,  radium — all 
these,  of  such  seeming  multiple  divergence,  are  really 
concentrating  their  rays  upon  a  common  centre. 
When  that  centre  is  divined,  we  shall  have  scientific 
witness,  demonstrated  certification,  to  the  commerce 
between  body  and  spirit,  the  regality  of  will  over 
matter.  .  .  .  Then  will  lie  open  the  truth  which 
now  we  can  merely  point  to  by  plausibilities,  and 
fortify  by  instances,  the  sanctity  is  medicinal,  Holi- 
ness a  healer.  .  .  .  Health,  I  have  well-nigh 
said,  is  Holiness.  What  if  Holiness  be  Health?  .  .  ." 
Have  we  not  all  a  forecast  of  some  such  perfect  mar- 
riage of  soul  and  body,  in  which  the  two  will  be  no 
more  at  war  than  thought  with  word?  It  is  vouch- 
safed to  us  here  and  there  in  a  gracious  example, 
some  saint  whose  every  action  is  ordered  with  a 
divine  courtesy,  some  lady  who  seems  to  live  to  an 
ever-sounding,  interior  music.  Perhaps  it  is  a  dream 
of  the  glorified  rather  than  of  the  earthly  body;  but 
let  us  hear  the  poets  when  they  describe  it,  lest  we 

55 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

should  not  recognize  our  inheritance  when  it  comes 
to  us. 

It  is  curious  to  compare  Francis  Thompson's 
vision  with  that  of  Guyau,  most  spiritual  of  evolu- 
tionists. "Pleasure,  even  physical  pleasure  growing 
more  and  more  delicate,  and  mingling  with  moral 
ideas,  will  become  more  and  more  esthetic ;  we  see 
as  the  ideal  term  of  evolution  a  race  to  which  every 
pleasure  will  be  beautiful,  every  agreeable  action 
artistic,  We  should  then  be  like  those  instruments, 
which  are  so  amply  sonorous,  that  it  is  impossible  to 
touch  them  without  evoking  a  sound  of  musical 
value ;  the  lightest  stimulus  would  set  in  vibration 
the  depths  of  our  moral  life.  .  .  .  Art  will  no 
longer  stand  severed  from  life ;  our  consciousness 
will  have  grown  so  vast  and  so  delicate  as  to  be  ever 
alert  to  the  harmony  of  life,  and  all  our  pleasures 
will  bear  the  sacred  seal  of  beauty." 

They  are  alike  ideals;  but  they  help  in  very 
different  ways  to  keep  alive  in  us  that  curiosity 
which  is  the  seed  of  the  future,  and  to  remind  us 
that  man,  if  not  in  this  life  perfectible,  is  capable  of 
endless  progress.  The  superiority  of  the  Catholic 
poet  is  that  he  reinforces  the  natural  will  by  waters 
falling  an  infinite  height  from  the  infinite  ocean  of 
Spirit.  He  has  two  worlds  against  one.  If  we  place 
our  Fortunate  Islands  solely  within  the  walls  of  space 
and  time,  they  will  dissolve  into  a  mocking  dream  ; 
for  there  will  always  be  pain  that  no  wisdom  can 
assuage.  They  must  lie  on  the  edge  of  the  horizon 
with  the  glimmer  of  a  strange  sea  about  their  shores, 
and  their  mountain  peaks  hidden  among  the  clouds. 

1905. 


56 


REVERIES  OF  ASSIZE 

It  is  the  last  day  of  the  Winter  Assizes.  If  you 
want  a  metaphor  to  drape  it  in,  you  may  call  it  the 
punitive  clearing-house  of  Society.  The  cheques  of 
crime  come  in,  with  sinister  crinklings  and  rustlings, 
to  receive  the  cancelling  stamp  which  announces  that 
in  six  months  or  twenty  years — or,  it  may  be,  three 
weeks,  with  a  hempen  halter  at  the  end — the  criminal 
will  have  cleared  his  account  with  the  State.  He 
may  then  begin  anew  .  .  .  if  he  be  sufficiently 
alive.  There  is  no  tragic  strain  in  the  air  as  the 
sentenced  prisoners  pass  out  of  the  dock  to  lose  their 
freedom,  their  clothes,  their  tobacco,  and  their  names 
for  the  stated  period.  They  do  not,  as  that  young 
reporter  racing  over  the  last  page  of  his  flimsy  is 
sure  to  write,  "  appear  to  realize  their  position." 
They  are  only  the  raw  material  of  tragedy.  They 
have  never,  like  you  and  me,  read  Gorky  in  bad 
English.  They  have  not  participated  in  the  revival 
of  Greek  drama;  nor  even,  with  the  aid  of  a  free 
pass,  studied  the  free  passions  of  the  Stage  Society. 

So  placed,  you  would,  doubtless,  gather  about  you 
the  purple  folds  of  a  sorrow  so  terrible  as  to  swallow 
up  all  remembrance  of  its  cause,  and  I  would  mimic 
wicked  marquises  who  went  to  the  tumbrils  with  a 
fine  phrase  and  an  incomparable  gesture.  But  the 
enemy  of  Society  now  in  the  dock,  in  course  of 
receiving  seven  years,  is  probably  wondering  under 
his  yellow  and  scrubby  face  how  the  skilly  will  taste, 
and  whether  they  will  wash  him  very  hard  in  jail. 

Seven  or  eight  days  in  an  Assize  Court  help  one 
to  understand  the  anarchist  and  his  attitude  towards 
crime.     The  theorists  of  Anarchism  propose  to  sweep 

57 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

away  the  whole  traditional,  minute  machinery  of 
penal  law,  and  leave  the  criminal  to  the  spontaneous 
justice  of  his  neighbours.  It  may  be  that  the 
neighbours  will  lynch  a  child-beater,  and,  shrouding 
their  faces  before  a  supreme  anguish,  will  let  a  man 
who  has  killed  go  free.  They  will  take  a  human, 
not  a  judicial  view  of  things.  But  be  that  as  it  may, 
one  does  feel  intensely  that  these  legal  forms  and 
moulds  are  too  narrow,  too  icily  definite,  too  blank 
to  psychology  to  contain  the  passionate  chaos  of 
life  that  is  poured  into  them.  Think  of  the  colossal 
pretensions  of  this  courthouse — this  drab  granite 
building,  with  the  unwashed  mud  on  its  pavements, 
and  the  susurrus  of  crowds  that  sweat  and  chatter 
about  it !  It  is  a  temple  to  the  Problem  of  Evil.  It 
is  a  temple  to  the  Problem  of  Evidence.  It  is  a 
temple  to  the  Mystery  of  Death.  And  when  you 
have  uttered  these  three  words  you  have  called  up 
the  whole  moral,  intellectual,  and  metaphysical  life 
of  humanity. 

If  it  were  not  contempt  of  court  you  would  rise 
up  and  cry  out  to  all  these  actors — judge,  jury, 
counsel,  prisoner,  policeman — that  the  tragic  halo 
is  about  their  heads.  You  would  recall  them  to  the 
bitter  greatness  which  they  seem  to  have  forgotten. 
Sad-robed  priests — if  your  vision  could  be  made  fact 
— would  chant  prayers  around  the  smoke  of  conse- 
crated censers  in  the  Doric  portico  of  this  Temple 
of  Fear.  And  the  prisoner,  sinner  and  victim  at 
once,  would  go  to  his  doom  covered  with  pity  as  with 
sacrificial  garlands. 

You  may  be  quite  certain  that  none  of  these  things 
will  happen.  There  is  no  provision  made  for  them  in 
Stephens'  Digest  of  the  Criminal  Law,  or  in  Archbold 
on  Evidence.  To  imagine  them  is  to  welcome  the 
decadence.  But  then,  as  you  look  up  at  the  bench, 
your  eye  is  caught  by  a  veritable,  decadent  touch — 
the  judge's  flowers.     I  do  not  know  whether  it  is 

58 


REVERIES  OF  ASSIZE 

part  of  the  ritual  or  not,  but  I  have  never  been  at  a 
Criminal  Assizes  without  seeing  that  incongruous 
bunch  of  flowers — this  time  they  are  ragged,  white 
chrysanthemums  in  a  vase  of  blue  china — beside  the 
inkpot  in  which  the  judicial  pen  is  dipped  as  it  takes 
notes  of  the  evidence  or  records  the  conviction.  It 
reminds  one  of  Baudelaire's  Fleurs  du  Mai,  Blossoms 
of  Sin. 

But,  after  all,  you  may  expect  anything  of  the 
judge.  He  is  a  wild  symbolist.  He  wears  scarlet 
to  manifest  the  wrath  of  the  law,  and  ermine  for 
the  purity  of  the  law — a  spotted  purity,  to  guess 
from  the  specimen  before  us — and  a  black  cap 
by  times  for  the  gloom  of  death.  Probably  there 
is  some  guarded  mystery  in  the  number  of  curls  in 
his  wig  of  white  horse-hair.  And  the  policemen — 
it  is  in  Ireland,  but  crime  is  as  cosmopolitan  as 
money ! — are  admirable  studies  in  silver  and  jet ; 
especially  the  district  inspectors,  with  their  braided 
hussar-jackets  and  the  gleam  of  chains  and  brooch- 
buckles  upon  them.  It  seems  an  artistic  imperti- 
nence that  crime  should  lift  its  shaggy  head  against 
so  many  perfumed  people,  dressed  out  in  such 
splendid  raiment.  But  great  as  are  the  virtues  of 
uniform,  they  do  not  quite  reach  to  the  total  extinc- 
tion of  evil. 

You  had  a  sense  of  utter  futility  as  you  listened 
to  the  steady,  infinitesimal  drip  of  evidence.  It  was 
like  the  nagging  and  pecking  patter  of  thin  rain  on 
a  hat.  It  proved  everything  with  absolute  conclu- 
siveness except  the  moral  guilt  of  the  prisoner.  You 
have  the  same  sense  of  the  emptiness  of  criminology 
as  a  pale,  sensitive  face  appears  above  the  spikes  of 
the  dock.  He  might  be  a  poet,  an  Assisi  peasant 
turned  saint,  but  certainly  there  is  no  signature  of 
crime  in  his  visage.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  stabbed 
a  neighbour  to  death  because  of  a  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  rate  of  wages  in  North  Carolina. 

59 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

It  seems  a  poor  reason  enough.  To  act  like  that  is 
to  take  truth  too  heavily,  and  life  too  lightly. 
Besides,  there  are  plenty  of  things  to  quarrel  about 
at  home  without  going  to  Carolina,  North  or  South. 

How  did  the  prisoner  come  to  do  it  ?  You  can 
see  that  he  is  as  puzzled  to  answer  the  question  as 
anybody  else.  He  stands  in  the  dock  clasping  and 
unclasping  the  fingers  of  that  horrible  right  hand 
which  held  the  knife.  It  seems  to  him  a  foreign 
body:  it  is  surely  not  his  ?  The  late  Mr.  Browning, 
perhaps,  could  explain  it.  After  all,  if  any  truth  is 
of  any  importance,  every  truth  is  of  infinite  import- 
ance. And  think  of  the  monstrous  spectacle  before 
Heaven  of  this  dead  man  riding  easily  about  the 
country  sowing  stories  two  dollars  a  week  wrong  as 
to  the  rate  of  wages  in  North  Carolina  !  How  many 
destinies  he  might  mis-shape  with  his  eight-and- 
fourpenny  error !  Well,  he  will  propagate  no  more 
economic  blunders.  And  his  slayer  will  wear  the 
yellow  and  arrowed  jacket  for  ten  years  to  come. 
But  will  that  give  back  the  dead  disputant  to  the 
sunlight  or  to  his  wife  ? 

The  courthouse  is  somehow  growing  too  small. 
Your  brain  is  growing  too  small.  The  world  itself 
is  too  small  for  these  explosive  and  shattering  specu- 
lations. The  judge  is  doing  his  best ;  everybody  is 
doing  his  best;  even  Mr.  Gladstone  who  undertakes 
in  his  Borstal  repair-shops  to  patch  up  a  moral 
personality,  as  good  as  new,  for  all  and  divers  his 
Majesty's  subjects  in  prison.  If  the  thing  is  to  be 
done  at  all  it  must  be  done  after  this  fashion. 

Certainly,  one  has  no  substitute  to  offer  for  this 
Judaeo-Roman-English  criminal  law,  and,  perhaps, 
equally  criminal  civilization.  Still,  one  is  conscious 
of  a  vague  protest  against  it  all.  In  crime,  in  moral 
evil,  the  veiled  destinies  have  set  mankind  a  problem 
too  hard  to  understand,  too  heavy  to  endure.  For 
my  part,  I  can  only  fall  back  on  the  serpent  and  the 

60 


REVERIES  OF  ASSIZE 

apple,  and  an  obscure  something  which,  as  my  Penny 
Catechism  says,  "  darkened  our  understanding, 
weakened  our  will,  and  left  in  us  a  strong  inclina- 
tion to  evil." 

1909. 


61 


A  NEW  WAY 
OF    MISUNDERSTANDING 
HAMLET 

What  one  felt  most  painfully  at  Mr.  Harvey's 
recent  performance  of  Hamlet  was  the  artistic  bank- 
ruptcy of  the  play.  Of  course  no  decent  citizen 
confessed  his  boredom,  because  Shakespeare  is  the 
keystone  of  the  conventions,  a  "  national  asset  "  as 
is  said  in  England.  But  if  art  means  freshness, 
words  with  raw,  vivid  sensation  behind  them,  sur- 
prise and  an  element  of  strangeness  ?  And  what 
else  does  it  mean  ?  Already  a  hundred  years  ago 
the  humane  Charles  Lamb  was  able  to  write  that 
all  the  shining  things  in  the  play  had  been  "  so 
handled  and  pawed  by  declamatory  boys  and  men  " 
that  for  him  they  were  "  perfect  dead  members." 
And  since  then  !  The  great  Law  of  Ennui  has  vin- 
dicated itself  even  against  Shakespeare.  He  has 
been  mummified  into  an  orthodoxy.  He  is  a  field 
for  antiquarians,  a  proud  heritage,  an  excuse  for 
sumptuous  scenery,  but  as  an  artist  in  the  strict 
sense  he  hardly  exists.  Only  one  thing  can  restore 
him,  a  prolonged  bath  of  oblivion.  If  he  is  to  be 
brought  to  life  again  he  must  be  redeemed  from  his 
immortality,  which  will  be  better  than  to  redeem 
his  house  from  the  Americans.  Societies  must  be 
started  to  destroy  his  works,  at  all  events  to  lose 
them  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  so  make  it 
possible  for  unborn  happier  generations  to  come  to 
him  as  to  a  fresh  and  breathing  phenomenon. 
Failing  that  he  must  be  excluded  from  all  school 
and  university  courses,  and  forbidden  under  heavy 

62 


MISUNDERSTANDING  HAMLET 

penalties  to  any  one  not  having  attained  his  majority. 

The  pity  is  that,  with  the  calamity  of  so  long  life, 
he  should  not  have  the  happiness  to  be  understood. 
The  inky  Dane,  in  especial,  has  had  as  evil  fortune 
in  this  regard  as  if  he  had  walked  the  actual  earth 
and  devoted  himself  to  politics.  Critic  after  critic 
has  arisen  to  misrepresent  him,  and  this  secular 
misrepresentation  has  so  crept  into  the  empire  of 
our  imagination  that  direct  vision  of  the  play  is 
impossible.  Tieck's  Hamlet  we  know,  and  Goethe's 
and  Coleridge's  and  Mr.  Tree's  and  Mr.  Harvey's, 
but  Shakespeare's  Hamlet  no  man  knows.  Shake- 
speare's Hamlet,  as  a  painful  matter  of  fact,  no  man 
can  ever  know.  We  know  how  much  sub-meaning 
and  personal  colour  the  same  set  of  words  takes  on 
in  different  minds,  and  that  these  are  never  exactly 
what  they  were  in  the  creator's  mind.  And  then  in 
Hamlet  there  is  the  added  barrier  of  Elizabethan 
English,  and  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  is  as  topical 
as  a  pantomime.  What  each  of  us  does  is  to  con- 
struct a  private  understanding  of  Hamlet  (which  is 
certain  to  be  a  misunderstanding)  out  of  materials 
furnished  conjointly  by  ourselves,  Shakespeare,  a 
cloud  of  critics,  and  the  actor  who  happens  to  be 
concrete  before  our  eyes  at  the  moment ;  and  it  is 
in  confession  of  this,  and  not  as  a  poor  paradox, 
that  the  title  of  this  paper  has  been  devised. 

The  points  I  wish  modestly  to  put  forward  here 
will  be  most  intelligible  as  a  comment  on  the  popular 
reading.  That  reading  has  one  merit  at  least,  that 
of  simplicity.  According  to  it  the  plastic  principle 
of  the  play,  or  rather  the  flaw  that  suffers  it  to  stream 
down  its  ruinous  course,  is  a  vice  of  character — 
Hamlet's  "  inability  to  act."  It  is  Goethe's  "  oak 
planted  in  a  costly  vase  which  should  have  only  borne 
pleasant  flowers";  it  is  Coleridge's  "man  living  in 
meditation,  called  upon  to  act  by  every  motive, 
human  and  divine,  but  the  great  object  of  whose 

63 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

life  is  defeated  by  continually  resolving  to  do,  yet 
doing  nothing  but  resolve."  These  are  the  phrases 
that  have  captured  the  general  mind,  and  flowed 
like  a  mist  over  the  outlines  of  the  play.  But 
consider  for  a  moment.  Remembering  Goethe's 
paltry  performance — thanks  to  his  superculture — 
in  the  liberation  of  Germany,  and  the  lamentable 
life  story  of  Coleridge,  who  can  doubt  that  we  have 
here  not  so  much  the  poet's  imagination  as  that  of 
his  critics  ?  Quicquid  recipitur  secundum  modum  reci- 
pientis,  we  get  out  of  things  what  we  bring  to  them  ; 
and  I  submit  that  the  apocalypse  of  moral  insuffi- 
ciency discerned  by  these  two  eminent  minds  in 
Hamlet  was  brought  with  them  in  the  satchels  of 
their  conscience.  They  are  simply  making  General 
Confessions  at  the  expense  of  the  unfortunate  Prince. 
Let  us  analyse  this  interpretation  popularized  by 
them.  The  kernel  of  it  is  this.  It  demands  in  the 
place  of  Hamlet  a  crude,  gory,  gullible,  instantanous 
savage  who  not  only  believes  in  ghosts  but  lacks 
even  the  elementary  savage's  knowledge  that  there 
are  evil  as  well  as  good  ghosts,  and  whose  will  is 
hung  on  a  hair-trigger  dischargeable  by  the  airiest 
impulse  and  subject  to  no  restraint,  moral  or  pru- 
dential. The  commercial  blandness  with  which 
people  talk  of  Hamlet's  "  plain  duty  "  makes  one 
wonder  if  they  recognize  such  a  thing  as  plain 
morality.  The  "  removal "  of  an  uncle  without 
due  process  of  law  and  on  the  unsupported  state- 
ment of  an  unsubpcenable  ghost ;  the  widowing  of 
a  mother  and  her  casting-off  as  unspeakably  vile, 
are  treated  as  enterprises  about  which  a  man  has  no 
right  to  hesitate  or  even  to  feel  unhappy.  Because, 
meshed  about  with  murder,  adultery,  usurpation, 
espionage,  hypocrisy,  and  all  other  natural  horrors, 
reinforced  by  the  still  greater  horror  of  the  super- 
natural, because  in  these  cheerful  conditions  Hamlet 
is  healthy-minded  enough  to  grow  "  thought-sick," 

64 


MISUNDERSTANDING  HAMLET 

he  is  marked  down  as  one  "  unstable  as  water." 
What  bewilders  most  of  all  is  that  there  lurks  in 
the  popular  view  (and  I  appeal  to  the  general  expe- 
rience) a  vague  conviction  that  if  Hamlet  had  only 
shown  himself  morally-fibrous  enough,  all  the  blood 
and  tears  would  somehow  have  been  averted  and 
the  curtain  would  fall  on  a  serene  Denmark. 

I  do  not  deny  that  a  tragedy  derived  from  super- 
culture  and  a  feeble  will  would  be  admirable. 
Indeed  if  it  be  wanted  it  can  be  found  in  the  purest 
essence  in  Turgeneffs  Rudin.  But  I  submit  that 
this  is  not  the  true  ethos  of  Hamlet.  I  submit  that 
Hamlet,  so  far  from  being  the  most  "  internal  "  of 
Shakespeare's  plays,  is  nearly  the  most  "external," 
and  has  for  plastic  principle  not  character  but  that 
veiled  force  which  we  call  destiny.  What,  in  fine, 
is  it  but  a  tale  of  justice,  bloodily  executed 
through  what  seem  "accidental  judgments,  casual 
slaughters  "  ?  Such  indeed  was  the  reading  of  the 
Prince  himself: — 

Heaven  hath  pleased  it  so 

To  punish  me  with  this,  and  this  with  me, 

That  I  must  be  their  scourge  and  minister. 

The  problem  is  set  wholly  from  the  outside.  It  is 
not  a  product  of  Hamlet's  superculture,  but  of  the 
sin  of  his  uncle  and  the  lesser  sin  of  his  mother, 
and  it  is  a  problem  so  overwhelming  that,  however 
it  be  handled  and  by  whatever  type  of  character,  it 
must  issue  in  abundant  tears  and  blood.  What  is 
claimed  here  for  Hamlet's  solution  is,  that  it  is  the 
only  one  justified  by  the  character  of  the  evidence 
and  the  practical  means  at  his  command,  and  that, 
above  all,  it  is  justified  by  results.  The  destinies 
approve  and  aid  him,  and  when  the  curtain  falls  on 
a  terrible  harvest  of  horror  we  feel,  nevertheless,  a 
deep  appeasement.  The  agony  of  Hamlet  is  over, 
the  due  ransom  of  sin  has  been  paid  with  lives  guilty 

F  65 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

and  innocent,  and  with  the  inearthing  of  much  moral 
refuse,  the  world  sweeps  into  pure  air  again.  The 
roll  of  Fortinbras'  drums  is  not  so  much  the  irony 
as  the  recuperative  force  of  life,  lingering  with  praise 
over  the  body  of  him  who  has  made  recuperation 
possible. 

This  is  a  point  which  must  not  be  ignored :  the 
play  ends,  thanks  to  Hamlet's  course  of  action,  in 
absolutely  the  best  way  in  which  it  could  end.  The 
king,  of  course,  was  due  to  the  sword.  But  surely 
Gertrude  also  is  better  out  of  the  world  than  in  it  ? 
Had  she  lived  there  was  nothing  but  the  gnawing  of 
the  worm,  shame  and  remorse,  or  perhaps — and  the 
closet  scene  shows  her  capable  of  it — the  triumph  of 
the  fouler  part  of  her,  and  the  pursuit  of  her  son 
with  hatred  and  vengeance.  Does  anybody  drop 
tears  over  Laertes,  that  polished  cutter  of  throats  i' 
the  church  ?  There  remain  Polonius  and  Ophelia. 
The  comic  side  of  Polonius  is  always  played  with 
such  over-emphasis  as  to  hide  the  dangerous  side  of 
him.  His  complicity  in  the  murder  of  the  elder 
Hamlet  may  be  disputed,  although  it  is  not  easy 
otherwise  to  explain  his  overweening  influence  with 
Claudius.  He  certainly  conspired  with  the  latter  in 
his  usurpation,  and  we  cannot  say  what  is  the  bound 
to  his  falseness.  Suppose  he  had  not  been  slain 
behind  the  arras,  but  had  lived  to  carry  his  tale  to 
Claudius,  what  course  of  action  would  he  have  coun- 
selled? Like  son,  like  father;  his  plan  would  have 
differed  from  the  poisoned  rapier  only  in  being, 
perhaps,  a  little  more  politic.  Polonius  helps  to 
remind  us  that  we  may  have  comic  murderers,  just 
as  the  Burghleys  and  other  contemporary  statesmen 
show  that  we  may  have  pious  murderers.  As  for 
Ophelia,  she  is  one  of  those  who  are  organized  for 
unhappiness.  Hamlet's  disgust  with  life  is  so  violent, 
just  and  incurable  that  the  old  magic  of  their  love 
can  never  return,  and  his  straits  are  such  that,  how- 

66 


MISUNDERSTANDING  HAMLET 

ever  he  acts,  enough  misery  will  be  produced  to 
dethrone  her  frail  reason. 

I  have  submitted  also  that  the  evidence  in  Hamlet's 
possession  never  reaches  that  daylight  certainty 
which  justifies  private  vengeance.  If  Shakespeare 
had  intended  to  exhibit  a  mind  which  is  at  once 
absolutely  sure  of  itself  and  incapable  of  action, 
would  he  not  have  brought  the  murder  to  light  by 
the  agency  of  some  courtier  who  had  secretly 
witnessed  it?  In  fact  the  ghost  is  the  one  great 
blot  and  uncombining  ingredient  in  the  play.  Had 
Shakespeare  preserved  the  mental  climate  of  the 
original  story  the  ghost  might  perhaps  have  been 
tolerated,  but  he  is  quite  out  of  joint  with  so  thorough 
a  modern  as  Hamlet.  He  complicates  the  whole 
action,  and  steeps  it  in  incongruity.  Hamlet's  desire 
to  have  more  relative  grounds  than  the  word  of  this 
visitant  in  whom  it  is  impossible  to  believe  fully 
except  during  his  actual  presence  is  in  the  highest 
degree  natural.  He  therefore  tries  the  experiment 
of  the  play,  and  fails.  What  he  had  hoped  was  to 
provoke  Claudius  to  "  proclaim  his  malefaction  "  in 
the  ear  of  the  court,  for  the  case  that  has  to  be  built 
up  is  one  that  will  convince  not  only  Hamlet,  but 
also  the  public  at  large.  What  really  is  provoked  ? 
A  temporary  indisposition  which  can  be  explained 
away  in  two  sentences  the  next  day.  It  may  convince 
Hamlet,  but  it  certainly  would  not  secure  his  acquittal 
before  a  jur)\ 

But  even  supposing  him  to  be  justifiably  certain, 
has  he  the  practical  means  to  kill  Claudius  without, 
by  the  same  act,  surrendering  himself  to  death  ? 
Claudius  was  popular  enough  to  override  Hamlet's 
claims  and  have  himself  chosen  king.  In  that  office 
he  had  shown  competence,  his  relations  with  England 
and  Norway  being  most  excellent.  He  had  a  levy 
of  three  thousand  men  in  the  immediate  neighbour- 
hood of  the  court  whom  he  kept  in  good  humour  by 

67 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

frequent  carousals.  His  courtiers  were  so  loyal  that 
the  Court-play  apparently  awoke  not  the  least 
suspicion  or  hostility  in  a  single  one  of  them,  and 
that,  even  after, Laertes'  confession  of  his  treachery, 
when  Hamlet  plunges  his  rapier  into  Claudius,  they 
shriek  "  Treason  !  Treason  !  "  and  would  no  doubt 
have  cut  the  young  prince  down  were  that  not  plainly 
superfluous.  As  against  this,  Hamlet  is  a  student, 
just  come  home,  super-intelligent  and  a  hater  of  bores 
and  shams.  His  opinion  of  the  masquerade  of  royalty 
may  be  gathered  from  that  one  remark  of  his  :  "  Let's 
to  the  Court!  for,  by  my  fay,  I  cannot  reason."  He 
applies  his  literary  criticism  to  every-day  conver- 
sation, and  analyses  received  platitudes  with  the  most 
ruthless  candour.  To  crown  all,  he  is  a  Temperance 
Pioneer !  In  short,  the  situation  is  such  that  no  one 
would  have  much  chance  of  organizing  support 
enough  to  oust  Claudius,  but  that  Hamlet,  by  the 
sheer  force  of  his  superiorities,  has  no  chance  at  all. 
Of  course  it  is  always  possible  for  him  to  slay  the 
king  and  sacrifice  his  own  life  to  his  vengeance.  But 
that  would  be  something  worse  even  than  "  hire  and 
salary,"  and  he  has  no  enthusiasm  for  dying.  Many 
people  assume  that  he  has,  but  in  fact  he  is  philoso- 
pher enough  to  be  afraid  of  death.  True,  like  every 
man  of  high  intellect,  he  has  moments  of  moral 
nausea,  when  he  almost  thinks  that  the  best  thing 
is  not  to  be  born,  the  next  best  to  leave  life  as  quickly 
as  may  be.  But  he  recoils  from  the  invisible  event ; 
above  all,  he  never  caresses  the  idea  of  suicide.  The 
great  "  to  be  or  not  to  be  "  monologue,  sometimes 
interpreted  in  this  sense,  is  really  the  precise  opposite. 
It  is  rather  an  admonition  to  himself  to  defy  death 
which  he  sees  to  be  probably  bound  up  with  his 
revenge,  and  not  to  suffer  his  great  enterprise,  to  be 
turned  away  by  the  fear  of  death.  In  short  he  never 
is  absolutely  certain  of  the  facts  of  the  crime,  nor  in 
a  position  to  punish  it  with  safety  to  himself.     And, 

68 


MISUNDERSTANDING  HAMLET 

although  Shakespeare  cannot  amend  this  latter 
circumstance,  he  does  amend  the  former,  and  with 
exquisite  dramatic  courtesy  allows  Hamlet  full 
evidence  of  the  king's  guilt  of  another  murder  before 
calling  his  retributive  sword  into  action. 

What  counts  against  Hamlet  in  popular  estimation 
is  his  continual  self-reproach.  But  this  springs  just 
from  his  exacting  ideal  of  action,  for  he  would  shorten 
a  straight  line  to  reach  his  end.  Religious  biography 
will  furnish  a  parallel ;  it  is  not  among  the  actual 
sinners  that  we  find  self-contempt  and  a  consciousness 
of  the  unforgiveable  sin,  but  among  the  Bunyans 
and  the  Saint  Alphonsus  Ligouris.  There  is  another 
motive  behind  Hamlet's  outbursts.  He  is  not  certain 
enough  to  act,  but  his  tense  and  tortured  mind  must 
find  relief,  and  words  are  not  irrevocable.  But  after 
the  emotional  debauch  of  his  monologues,  the  lucid 
judgment  returns,  with  its  questionings  and  firm 
grasp  of  difficulties.  Hamlet  is  compromised  also  by 
the  speculative  embroideries  which  his  mind  works 
over  the  drab  stuff  of  experience.  People  think  with 
Horatio  that  it  is  "to  enquire  too  curiously  "  to  find 
the  dust  of  Alexander  stopping  a  beer-barrel.  But 
is  it?  Is  not  Hamlet  rather  the  avid  intellect,  which 
must  needs  think  out  of  things  everything  that  is  to 
be  found  in  them  ?  "  Hamlet's  obstacles  are  internal." 
He  certainly  has  internal  obstacles.  He  is  hampered 
by  conscience,  natural  affection,  an  exquisite  taste 
and  a  capacity  for  metaphysics;  very  grave  obstacles, 
if  what  is  desired  is  immediate  bloodshed.  Some 
critics  hold  that  Shakespeare  wrote  Hamlet  to  purge 
his  countrymen  of  these  qualities  which  he  perceived 
spreading,  to  the  infinite  prejudice  of  Elizabethan 
Jingoism.  It  may  be  so,  and  I  am  free  to  confess 
that,  as  far  as  public  policy  goes,  his  countrymen 
have  reformed  them  indifferently.  But  it  is  just 
because  of  these  failings  that  Hamlet  possesses 
human  significance.  Without  them,  he  might  be 
very  interesting  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  tiger,  but 

69 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

he  would  never  have  touched  and  troubled  our 
imagination.  As  it  is,  we  think  of  him  as  the  noble 
and  courtly  prince  who  passes  through  life,  annotating 
it  with  a  gloss  of  melanchol)-  speculation  that  has 
been  absorbed  into  the  mind  of  Europe,  and  who  so 
confronts  it  practically  that  the  destinies  adopt  him 
for  their  minister,  and,  through  him,  draw,  out  of 
unexampled  horrors,  justice  and  even  a  certain 
terrible  peace.1 

As  a  perhaps  tedious  supplement,  I  submit  that 
the  character  of  Horatio  has  been  as  favourably,  as 
that  of  Hamlet  has  been  unfavourably,  misunderstood. 
He  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  the  strong,  silent, 
truly  virile  man,  held  up  in  contrast  to  the  gusty  and 
barren  metaphysician.  In  support  of  this  there  can 
be  produced  just  a  single  speech  of  Hamlet's :  against 
it  there  is  the  whole  of  Horatio's  words  and  actions. 
The  eulogy,  like  so  many  other  passages,  has,  however, 
never  been  construed  in  its  dramatic  context.  It  is 
spoken,  be  it  remembered,  immediately  before  the 
play,  when  Hamlet  is  tense  with  the  most  terrible 
expectation.  He  is  about  to  probe  the  King's 
conscience  to  the  quick,  and  naturally  wants  cor- 
roboration of  his  own  prejudiced  eyes,  and  perhaps 
assistance  in  the  scene  that  may  follow.  In  order  to 
induce  the  deplorable  Horatio  to  render  even  this 
petty  service  it  is  necessary  to  flatter  him,  and  the 
exaggerated  courtesy,  natural  to  Hamlet — as  in  the 
reception  of  Rosencranz  and  Guildenstern — combines 
with  his  immediate  need  to  produce  superlatives. 
His  own  fine  taste  rebels  against  them,  and,  as  is 

1  The  only  sustainable  charge  that  can  be  made  against  Hamlet 
is  one  of  over-hasty  action — with  regard.  I  mean,  to  Rosencranz 
and  Guildenstern.  He  sent  them  to  death  without  anything  like 
decisive  proof  of  "their  complicity  in  the  design  to  have  him 
executed  in  England.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  they  knew 
the  contents  of  the  original  commission  ;  indeed  the  contrary  is 
established  by  their  continuing  their  journey  after  losing  Hamlet. 
Most  people  will,  however,  accept  the  latter's  justification  of 
himself  as  satisfactory. 

70 


MISUNDERSTANDING  HAMLET 

known,  he  concludes  with  "  something  too  much  of 
this !  "  (Were  I  a  German  I  would  suggest  that 
these  words  are  an  amending  note  of  Shakespeare  on 
the  MS.,  which  he  is  known  to  have  been  revising, 
that  he  meant  to  recast  the  lines,  and  that  his  private 
note  has  been  interpolated  into  Hamlet's  speech.) 
What,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  Horatio's  record  in 
the  play?  He  is  at  Elsinore  two  months  before 
he  thinks  it  worth  while  to  call  on  his  old  friend 
Hamlet,  although  he  knows  the  latter  to  be  in  the 
most  grievous  trouble.  At  the  first  appearance  of 
the  ghost  he  has  not  wit  enough  to  address  it  in 
Latin,  although  that  is  what  he  was  brought  there 
for  by  Marcellus.  At  the  second  appearance  he  is 
not  able  even  to  tell  Hamlet  the  time,  and  later  is 
guilty  of  a  much  grosser  ineptitude.  Marcellus 
urges  him  to  come  on  after  the  Prince  and  the 
ghost.  "  Oh  !"  says  Horatio,  "  Heaven  will  direct 
it !  "  and  his  delegation  of  his  duty  to  Providence 
has  to  be  crushed  by  Marcellus'  "  Nay,  let's  follow 
him."  At  what  stage  he  comes  to  know  of  the 
King's  crime  is  not  clear,  but  he  certainly  possesses 
all  Hamlet's  knowledge  of  it  after  the  the  Court 
Play.  And  what  does  this  strong  silent  man  do  ? 
Organize  a  party,  as  Laertes  found  friends  to 
oraganize  one,  to  execute  vengeance  against 
Claudius?  By  no  means.  He  has  nothing  better 
to  say  than  that  he  very  well  noted  the  King  and 
that  Hamlet  ought  to  rhyme  the  quatrain  in  which 
his  frenzy  extravagates.  Afterwards,  when  the 
Prince  is  sent  to  England  under  the  most  sinister 
circumstances,  does  the  good  Horatio  make  an 
attempt  either  to  accompany  or  to  liberate  him  ? 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  lies  conscientiously  low,  and 
cultivates  the  best  relations  with  Cladius.  His  next 
opportunity  is  at  Hamlet's  relation  of  his  escape 
from  the  death  intended  for  him  in  England. 
Horatio  has  indeed  the  grace  to  admire  Hamlet's 
superior  firmness  of  character — "  Why,  what  a  king 

7i 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

is  this!" — but  he  does  his  best  to  cancel  this  by 
sympathetic  tears  over  Rosencranz  and  Guildenstern. 
Before  the  duel  he  administers  draughts  of  dis- 
couragement and  superstition,  and  he  has  not  the 
sense  to  see  that  Laertes'  rapier  is  unbated.  In 
fact  from  beginning  to  end  he  is  a  wandering  inepti- 
tude who  has  never  a  single  suggestion,  and  whose 
speech  consists  mainly  of  "  Ay,  my  Lords,"  "  That 
is  most  certain,"  "  Is  it  possible,"  and  other  helpful 
phrases.  At  the  last  he  has  one  good  impulse  to 
finish  the  poisoned  cup,  but  the  dying  Hamlet 
intervenes,  and  Horatio  addresses  himself  to  funeral 
orations  which  are  certainly  much  more  after  his 
heart.  He  is  prayed  merely  to  absent  himself  from 
felicity  awhile,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  he  does  not 
construe  the  last  as  the  emphatic  word,  but  stands 
in  as  an  echo  to  Fortinbras  and  absents  himself  as 
long  as  possible.  And  this  is  the  strong  silent  man 
after  whom  Hamlet  should  have  modelled  himself! 
In  truth  he  compares  poorly  with  Osric,  who  was 
at  any  rate  a  stylist. 

I  cannot  abstain  from  a  word  on  Hamlet  as  an 
art  critic.  His  theory  that  the  stage  should  hold 
the  mirror  up  to  nature  is  of  course  absurd,  at  least 
as  far  as  gesture  and  outer  expression  of  emotion 
goes.  I  refer  rather  to  his  employment  of  art  as 
an  oblique  moral  inquisition — a  most  remark- 
able anticipation  of  what  Browning  has  to  say  in 
the  Epilogue  of  "The  Ring  and  the  Book";  and 
to  his  delightful  prophetic  criticism  of  the  two 
great  achievements  of  the  modern  theatre — the 
musical  comedy  and  the  problem  play.  Polonius 
has  grown  impatient  at  the  length  of  the  fine  epic 
passage  recited  by  the  players  ;  Hamlet  turns  on 
him  with  his  unforgettable  "  Oh,  he  must  have  a  jig 
or  a  tale  of  bawdy,  or  he  falls  asleep." 

1905. 
72 


YOUNG   EGYPT 

Geneva,  September  1909. 

The  Congress  of  the  Jeunesse  Egyptienne  is  over. 
The  Rue  Bartholomy  is  no  longer  splashed  with 
the  crimson  and  scarlet  of  the  tarbouch  which  one 
learns  is  the  correct  term  for  what  we  more  naturally 
call  the  fez.  And  as  one  sits  by  the  lake  shore, 
drowsed  with  the  dim  and  misted  beauty  of  the 
Swiss  September,  there  are  no  grave,  dark  faces,  no 
star  and  crescent  favours,  no  cataracts  of  vowelled 
Arabic  to  force  one  back  again  to  the  dusty  duties 
of  political  conflict. 

All  this  is  to  say  that  the  Congress,  as  a  spectacle, 
was  brilliant  and  picturesque.  The  Jeunesse 
Egyptienne  is,  to  a  large  extent,  a  jeunesse  doree. 
It  is  also  a  movement  of  intellectuals.  The  great 
body  of  the  delegates  were  students — students  in 
law,  medicine,  or  arts — who  thronged  here  from 
Lyons,  Paris,  Dijon,  Oxford.  The  President,  M. 
Mohamed  Fahmy,  is  a"  free  professor  "  of  Mahome- 
tan law  at  the  University  of  Geneva.  Hamed  El 
Alaily,  who  read  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  paper  at 
the  Congress,  "  A  Plea  for  a  Constructive  Policy," 
is  at  Oxford,  and  carries  about  him  a  curious  sense 
at  once  of  the  fine  essence  of  Oxford  and  the  fine 
essence  of  that  Arab  culture  which  gave  us  Avicenna 
and  Averroes.  M.  Loutfi  Goumah,  who  swept  the 
Congress  off  its  feet  on  the  second  day  with  a 
passionate  reply  to  Mr.  Keir  Hardie,  entertains  me 
in  the  evening  with  a  lecture  on  Eastern  lyrical 
poetry.  When  Egypt  is  free  he  assures  me  with  a 
smile  that  he  will  at  last  have  time  to  complete  a 

73 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

criticism  of  German  philosophy  from  the  Arabic  point 
of  view. 

Decidedly  whatever  you  may  call  the  Young 
Egyptians,  you  cannot  call  them  uneducated  or 
irresponsible.  On  the  contrary,  they  manifest  every 
sign  of  wealth,  culture,  knowledge  of  the  world,  and 
a  courtesy  suave  beyond  expression.  There  is  a 
wide  range  of  racial  types  from  the  noble  Arabian 
profile  to  something  that  seems  almost  Ethiopian. 
In  social  intercourse  one  is  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  they  have  all  gone  to  a  good  tradition  for  their 
manners  and  to  a  good  tailor  for  their  clothes.  One 
is  impressed  still  more  by  the  evidences  of  firmness 
of  character.  Hardly  any  of  them  touches  wine. 
Most  of  them  do  not  seem  to  smoke.  "  You  see," 
says  one  of  the  non-smokers,  "  tobacco  darkens  the 
complexion.  And,  mon  Dieu  !  am  I  not  dark  enough 
already  ?" 

Whether  this  abstinence  has  any  religious  sanction 
at  the  present  day  is  a  matter  difficult  to  determine. 
One  hardly  thinks  so ;  and  yet  I  have  a  picture  of  a 
stout  and  amiable  pasha  at  the  Congress  slipping 
his  Rosary  Beads  through  his  fingers  with  incredible 
industry,  with  a  murmur  for  each  bead  of  "  Allah  !" 

For  the  moment  there  is  one  binding  idea,  and 
only  one,  dominent  in  the  assembly,  and  that  is  not 
a  religious  but  a  political  idea.  Three  parties  are 
represented,  grading  down  from  fierce  extremists  to 
somewhat  timid  reformers,  but  let  a  speaker  fling 
out  the  cry  of"  Egypt  for  the  Egyptians,"  and  Con- 
servative hands  clap  as  loudly  as  Radical  hands  to 
a  fusillade  of  "  Tres  biens  "  and  "  Bravos."  The 
Congress  is  inspired  by  a  sincere  passion  for  nation- 
ality. It  has  no  hatred  for  England  except  in  so 
far  as  Egypt  cannot  belong  at  the  same  time  to  the 
English  and  to  the  Egyptians. 

And  here  I  must  signalize  the  dramatic  moment 
of  the  proceedings.     Just  as   every  picture  has  its 

74 


YOUNG  EGYPT 

centre  of  repose,  so  every  assembly  has  its  centre  of 
tension.  At  Geneva  this  central  point  was  found 
when  M.  Loutfi  Goumah  leaped  to  his  feet  to  reply 
to  some  things  that  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  had  said,  and 
to  other  things  which  he  had  not  said.  "  Mr.  Hardie 
has  spoken  of  helping  us  to  achieve  •  some  effective 
form  of  self-government.'  We  do  not  want  '  some 
effective  form  of  self-government.'  Egypt  demands 
a  free  constitution,  flowing  to  her  not  from  the 
British  Parliament  but  from  her  own  monarch,  the 
Khedive.  Mr.  Hardie  promises  to  ask  questions  in 
tho  House  of  Commons.  What  sort  of  questions  ? 
He  will  ask  whether  Cairo  has  a  good  drainage 
system,  and  whether  the  water  is  drinkable  in  Alex- 
andria. But  we  want  fundamental  questions  about 
fundamental  matters.  We  want  him  to  ask  what  is 
to  be  the  date  of  the  evacuation." 

My  duty  is  not  to  appraise,  but  merely  to  chronicle 
facts,  and  without  discussing  the  strange  interpre- 
tation which  exhibited  Mr.  Hardie  as  a  Conservative, 
I  have  only  to  say  that  as  M.  Goumah  proceeded 
with  his  speech,  the  tides  of  passion  rose  higher  and 
higher  in  the  Congress,  and  that  he  resumed  his 
chair  amid  a  tumult  of  cheers.  Crimson  tarbouches 
bobbed  their  way  to  the  platform,  and  groups  of 
students  flung  themselves  on  the  orator,  embracing 
him,  and  kissing  his  hands.  "  The  Mazzini  of 
Egypt!"  shouted  somebody  beside  me  in  the  crowd. 

Undoubtedly  he  is  one  of  the  men  of  the  future. 
Small  and  spare,  with  a  drooping  moustache,  he 
throbs  with  such  intense  energy  that  you  expect  to 
see  electric  sparks  leap  out  of  his  gesturing  figure. 
He  speaks  French,  English,  and  Arabic  with  the  same 
fluent  precision.  He  has  the  gift  of  epigram,  and, 
unlike  his  compatriots,  a  quick  sense  of  humour. 
With  Hamed  El  Alaily,  and  Mohamed  Fahmy — 
this  latter  a  striking  figure  with  countless  centuries 
of  Oriental  shrewdness  in   his  face — he  constitutes 

75 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

the  pivot  around  which    this  new    movement   will 
revolve. 

Opinions  differ,  and  hopes  will  be  disappointed, 
but  for  my  part  I  regard  this  second  Congress  as 
opening  a  new  epoeh  in  the  Egyptian  Nationalist 
movement.  The  actual  work  of  the  three  days, 
including  the  foundation  of  a  new  propagandist 
journal  and  the  initiation  of  a  system  of  free  national 
schools  in  Egypt,  has  already  been  recorded  in  the 
newspapers.  I  am  concerned  only  to  give  some 
faint  sense  of  the  tone  and  atmosphere  of  the 
Congress.  It  was  alive  in  every  fibre.  The  papers 
read,  although  somewhat  too  encyclopaedic  for  the 
occasion,  were  the  work  of  cultured  men.  The  few 
differences  as  to  details  merely  lent  relief  to  the 
keenness  and  enthusiasm  of  the  assembly.  And  with 
all  this  there  was  behind  the  whole  programme  a 
sincere  desire  for  peace.  The  so-called  "  violence  " 
of  the  speeches  consisted  merely  in  saying  what 
•every  Englishman  has  heartily  said  with  Simon  De 
Montfort,  and  Hampden,  and  Locke,  and  John 
Stuart  Mill. 

Much  has  happened  since  the  Geneva  Congress. 
That  Tartuffe-Tartarin,  Colonel  Roosevelt,  has  trailed 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  in  the  foulest  mud  of  Imperi- 
alism. M.  Briand  has  forbidden  the  Congress  of 
1910  to  meet  in  Paris,  and,  thereby,  proclaimed  the 
nothingness  of  France  in  international  politics.  The 
Suez  Canal  affair  has  on  the  one  hand,  unified 
national  feeling  in  Egypt,  and,  on  the  other,  has 
provoked  British  Imperialists  to  a  fresh  campaign  in 
favour  of  annexation.  The  problem  has  grown  more 
acute,  and  at  the  same  time  more  soluble.  The 
Canal  is  the  difficulty.  But  if  the  Canal  be  definitely 
neutralized,  on  terms  fair  to  Egypt  and  England 
alike,  what  pretext  will  then  remain  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  occupation? 

76 


THE   FATIGUE 
OF   ANATOLE   FRANCE1 

lL'Ile  des  Pingouins.  Les  Conies  de  Jacques  Tournebroche.  By 
Anatole  France.     1908. 

The  autumn  of  M.  Anatole  France  is  coloured 
by  the  one  vanity  of  human  existence  against  which 
his  soul  had  not  hitherto  adventured:  he  has  become 
popular.  "  My  last  years,"  Schopenhauer  used  to 
say,  "  bring  me  roses,  but  they  are  white  roses."  It 
may  be  that  there  is  a  like  pallor  in  the  coronals 
which  have  of  late  been  showered  so  abundantly  on 
the  great  French  master  of  irony,  tenderness,  and 
despair.  It  may  be  that  he  experiences  but  a  sombre 
consolation  at  seeing  his  radiant  and  incomparable 
prose  rendered,  with  many  refractions  into  English. 
But  at  all  events  he  has  achieved  notoriety.  Certain 
of  his  phrases — poison  in  crystal  cups  or  ambrosia 
of  the  gods  in  vinegar-vials :  who  shall  say  ? — have 
been  finally  adopted  into  the  gold  currency  of  litera- 
ture. The  man  himself  is  no  longer  a  veiled  prophet. 
The  famous  bust  in  which  he  looks  out  over  an 
Hebraic  nose  between  a  stiff  imperial  and  what  seems 
to  be  a  loose  forage  cap,  has  passed  through  Europe, 
at  least  in  photogravure.  The  book-reader  of  Brixton 
has  been  impelled  as  urgently  as  the  bookseller  of 
his  own  Quai  Malaquais  to  guess  at  the  secret  behind 
that  ridged  and  ambiguous  mask.  The  face,  some  of 
his  interpreters  have  said,  is  that  of  a  Bencdictin 
narqtiois.  Rather  is  it  the  face  of  a  soldier  ready  to 
die  for  a  flag  in  which  he  does  not  entirely  believe, 
on  condition,  be  it  understood,  that  he  shall  not  be 
asked  to  die  in  a  tragic  or,  as  one  might  say.  in  a 

77 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

muddy  fashion.  He  looks  out  at  you  like  a  veteran 
of  the  lost  cause  of  intellect,  to  whose  soul  the  trumpet 
of  defeat  strikes  with  as  mournful  and  vehement  a 
music  as  to  that  of  Pascal  himself,  but  who  thinks 
that  a  wise  man  may  be  permitted  to  hearten  himself 
up  in  evil  days  with  an  anecdote  after  the  manner 
of  his  master  Rabelais. 

M.  France  has  achieved  notoriety,  but  hardly 
happiness.  If  Vile  des  Pingouins  has  been  one  of 
the  best  discussed  volumes  of  late  years,  it  is  none 
the  less  a  bulletin  of  fatigue,  which  notifies  us  of  the 
burial  of  yet  another  illusion.  The  book,  indeed, 
seems  intended  as  the  last  chapter  of  a  period.  In  it 
Anatole  France,  savant,  stylist,  and  Olympian,  pro- 
nounces with  affection  and  contempt  a  funeral 
discourse  over  Anatole  France,  republican,  Socialist, 
and  Dreyfusard.  The  man  of  letters  lays  aside,  with 
smiling  sadness,  the  sword  of  a  fighting  publicist,  and 
an  interesting  case  of  dual  personality  comes  to  an 
end.  The  Socialists  are  naturally  in  despair,  At 
least  one  critic,  belonging  to  that  party,  confesses 
that  he  has  long  entertained  doubts  not  merely  about 
the  stability  of  M.  France,  but  even  about  his  sales, 
and  thinks  it  probable  that  an  edition  of  one  of  his 
books  nowadays  means  only  two  hundred  copies. 
But  had  not  his  greatest  interpreter,  George  Brandes, 
foreseen  the  present  reversion  to  type,  as  one  may 
•call  it  ?  "  It  may  be,"  wrote  Brandes,  after  hearing 
the  master  speak  at  a  Socialist  meeting  in  the  Paris 
Trocadero  in  1904,  "that  as  tbe  popular  orator — a 
career  for  which  he  was  not  intended  by  nature — 
he  has  proclaimed  himself  rather  more  strongly 
convinced  than  he  is  in  his  inmost  soul."  Had  not 
Doctor  Trublet  in  L'Histoire  Comique  separated 
himself  for  ever  from  the  "  advanced  "  thinkers  who 
believe  that  republicanism  is  the  final  truth  of  politics, 
and  that  by  the  application  of  this  truth  the  human 
race  is  infinitely  perfectible  ?     "  My  business,"  says 

78 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 

Trublet,  "  is  to  comfort  men  and  console "  them. 
How  can  one  comfort  or  console  anybody  without 
lying  ?  It  was  not  that  M.  France  refused  to  make 
sacrifices  to  the  will  to  believe  in  political  Utopias. 
On  the  contrary,  he  went  so  far  as  to  write  an 
introduction  to  the  collected  speeches  of  M.  Emile 
Combes,  and  even,  it  was  said,  to  read  the  novels  of 
M.  Zola.  Having  thus  acquired  a  firm  faith  in 
humanity,  he  was  at  pains  to  record  it  in  the  course 
of  a  speech  on  Renan.  "  Lentement,  mais  toujours, 
l'humanite  realise  les  reves  des  sages."  That  was  in 
1903.  In  1908,  having  come  to  understand  that  the 
process  of  realization  is  as  slow  as  the  movement  of 
a  glacier  and  as  tortuous  as  the  way  of  an  eagle  in 
the  air,  he  returns  to  the  orbit  of  his  temperament. 
His  futility  on  Blessed  Jeanne  d'Arc  laid  aside,  he 
contributes  an  introduction  to  the  memoirs  of 
Mademoiselle  Loie  Fuller,  a  dancer,  aud  publishes 
Penguin  Island  and  Les  Conies  de  Jacques  Tournebroche. 
L'lle  des  Pingouins  is  to  all  intents  a  comic  history 
of  France.  The  narrative  is  introduced  by  a  char- 
acteristic preface,  in  which  the  author  of  so  many 
brilliant  reconstructions  of  the  past  denies,  and  not 
for  the  first  time,  the  possibility  of  any  history, 
serious  or  comic.  He  consults  the  masters  of 
paleography,  but  they  indignantly  decline  to  be 
called  historians.  Who  has  ever  detected  them  in 
an  attempt  to  distil  the  scantiest  trickle  of  life  or 
truth  from  a  document?  That  is  an  enterprise  which 
may  attract  vain  and  imaginative  persons,  but  for 
their  part  they  work  in  the  spirit  of  positive  science. 
They  confine  themselves  to  verifiable  facts — that  is 
to  say,  to  texts — and  refuse  to  be  tempted  into  the 
fantastic  world  of  ideas.  It  is  possible  to  be  certain 
about  the  shape  of  words,  but  not  about  their 
significance.  M.  France  passes  on  to  the  recognized 
historians,  who  are  shocked  to  find  that  he  proposes 
to  write  an  original  history.     An  original  historian, 

79 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

they  assure  him,  is  the  object  of  universal  distrust  and 
contempt.  History  may  very  well  be  the  lie  agreed 
upon  ;  the  great  point  is  that  it  is  agreed  upon. 
Readers  of  history  do  not  like  to  be  surprised;  they 
look  to  find  only  the  stupidities  with  which  they  are 
already  familiar,  and  regard  any  novel  suggestion  as 
an  affront  to  some  cherished  belief.  The  historian 
must  therefore  be  on  his  guard  against  originality. 
He  must  also  be  respectful  towards  established  insti- 
tutions, and,  on  these  two  conditions,  success  is 
within  his  grasp.  Fortified  by  these  counsels  M. 
France  proceeds,  in  much  humility  of  spirit,  to 
narrate  the  story  of  the  island  of  Alca,  from  its 
beginnings  in  hagiography  to  its  ending  in  dynamite. 
There  is  little  need  to  set  out  here  in  any  detail 
the  substance  of  the  book.  The  title  is  easily 
explained.  The  old  saint  Mael,  a  missionary  of 
deep  faith  but  defective  eyesight,  is  transported  to 
the  Arctic  regions  in  a  miraculous  stone  trough. 
There,  mistaking  a  colony  of  penguins  for  men  and 
philosophers,  he  pronounces  the  formula  of  baptism 
over  them,  and  creates  a  theological  impasse  which 
can  only  be  relieved  by  the  actual  transformation 
of  the  penguins  into  human  shape.  The  island  is 
then  towed  by  Saint  Mael  to  the  coast  of  Brittany, 
and  there  under  the  name  of  Penguinia,  or  Alca,  it 
enters  the  comity  of  civilization.  It  evolves  through 
the  customary  stages,  inventing  in  turns  clothes — 
a  suggestion  of  the  devil — individual  property,  a 
royal  dynasty,  a  patron  saint,  and  the  taxation  of 
the  weak  for  the  benefit  of  the  strong.  These 
matters  afford  obvious  scope  for  the  subtle  and 
perverse  spirit  of  M.  France.  The  pages  on  the 
origin  of  property  are  not  only  powerful  but  even 
passionate  :  his  heart  is  for  the  moment  engaged  in 
the  writing.  A  chapter  on  the  mediaeval  art  of 
Penguinia  gives  him  an  opportunity  to  parody,  with 
delightful    malice,    the    English    theorists    of    the 

80 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 

pre-Raphaelite  movement.  But  it  must  be  confessed 
that  the  first  half  of  the  book  languishes  on  the 
perilous  edge  of  dullness.  The  serene  improprieties 
with  which  M.  France  annotates  his  Lives  of  the 
Saints,  mingling,  as  one  might  say,  the  odour  of  the 
smoke-room  with  the  odour  of  sanctity,  are  very 
Latin,  but  not  very  amusing.  M.  France  himself 
seems  to  perceive  that  his  grasp  on  his  material  is 
weakening:  he  makes  an  abrupt  plunge  from  the 
Renaissance  into  modern  history,  and  his  spright- 
liness  is  at  once  restored.  The  second  part, 
comprising  more  than  half  the  entire  volume,  is  a 
continuation  and  conclusion  of  the  novels  which 
have  been  published  since  1897  under  the  general 
title  of  Histoire  Contemporaine.  The  cometary  career 
of  Boulanger  and  the  Dreyfus  Affaire  are  recon- 
structed with  incomparable  verve.  Every  phrase 
tells,  every  figure  moves  in  the  glow  of  supreme 
comedy.  The  Visire  Ministry,  which  was  carried 
into  office  by  the  reaction  in  favour  of  Dreyfus, 
"  declared  itself  prudently  progressive.  Paul  Visire 
and  his  colleagues  were  eager  for  reforms,  and  it 
was  only  in  order  to  avoid  compromising  the  prospect 
of  these  reforms  that  they  refrained  from  proposing 
them.  For  they  were  deep  politicians,  and  they 
knew  that  to  propose  a  reform  is  to  compromise  it." 
From  history  we  pass  on  to  prophecy.  The  fate  of 
the  Clemenceau  Ministry,  plunged  ultimately  by 
rich  Jews,  reckless  journalists,  and  the  intrigues  of 
one  Madame  Ceres  ieto  an  irreparable  war,  is  some- 
what vaguely  outlined ;  and  in  a  last  chapter  we 
are  permitted  to  see  M.  France's  vision  of  the  future. 
It  is  not  a  very  cheerful  vision.  The  continued 
concentration  of  industry  has  evolved  a  society  of 
but  two  classes,  millionaires  and  employees.  The 
millionaire  type  exhibits  the  physical  characteristics 
of  Mr.  Rockefeller  developed  to  the  last  limit  of 
possibility.     Drier    of    body,    thinner   of    lip,    and 

g  81 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

yellower  of  complexion  than  the  old  Spanish  monks, 
they  cultivate  a  mysticism  and  even  an  asceticism 
of  opulence.  Living  in  their  offices  on  eggs  and 
milk,  they  have  no  intercourse  with  the  world  save 
through  the  medium  of  an  electric  button :  they 
steadily  amass  wealth  of  which  they  no  longer  see 
even  the  metallic  symbols,  and  acquire  infinite  means 
for  the  satisfaction  of  desires  which  they  no  longer 
experience.  The  material  constituents  of  this  world 
of  the  future  are  monstrous  and  tentacular  cities, 
temples  of  "  slaughterous  industry,  infamous  specu- 
lations, hideous  luxury,  and  a  colossal  uniformity  of 
ugliness."  Such  a  society  cannot  be  reformed ;  it 
can  only  be  destroyed.  And  under  the  shattering 
logic  of  dynamite,  or  rather  of  an  explosive  to  which 
dynamite  is  as  the  crackle  of  a  schoolboy's  squib, 
the  world  of  clerks  and  capitalists  dissolves.  An 
entire  civilization  is  effaced,  and  wild  horses  pasture 
on  the  site  of  the  capital  of  Alca.  Then  the  story 
of  civilization  begins  anew,  the  story  without  an 
end.  The  hunter  comes,  and  after  him,  in  a  dreary 
cycle,  the  shepherd,  the  tiller  of  the  soil,  the  weaver 
of  wool,  the  worker  in  iron.  The  effaced  civilization 
is,  with  infinite  labour  rebuilt.  Once  more  we  are 
in  a  world  of  millionaires  and  employees,  of 
monstrous  and  tentacular  cities.  .  .  .  The  thing 
that  has  been  is  the  thing  that  shall  be,  and  the 
achievement  of  the  future  will  be  as  that  of  the 
past.  The  epitaph  of  generations  unborn  will  be 
that  which  has  been  written  upon  the  tombstones 
of  generations  forgotten.  "  They  were  born,  they 
suffered,  they  died."  It  is  the  Eternal  Return  of 
ancient  philosophy,  in  a  garment  more  sombre  than 
any  of  which  the  ancients  ever  dreamed.  It  is  less 
an  Eternal  Return,  than  an  eternal  and  infinitely 
monotonous  tautology. 

Such  is  the  wisdom  to  which  Anatole  France  has 
come,  after  wandering  for  ten  years  in  the  desert  of 

82 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 

politics.  One  recalls  the  circumstances  under  which 
he  came  to  appear  in  the  role  of  a  publicist.  The 
vear  1897  witnessed  his  election  to  the  Immortals  ; 
it  also  witnessed  the  publication  of  the  first  two 
volumes  of  his  Histoire  Contemporaine.  Until  that 
year  he  had  not  descended  from  his  tower  of  ivory 
to  discover  the  actual  world.  In  his  candidature 
for  the  Academy  he  was  regarded  as  a  Conservative, 
and  was  opposed  to  Ferdinand  Fabre,  a  writer 
notorious  for  his  hostility  to  the  Church.  There  is 
no  need  to  suggest  a  corrupt  silence  on  his  part,  or 
a  sinister  coincidence  ;  but  the  truth  is  that  once 
safely  installed  in  the  chair  vacated  by  M.  Ferdinand 
de  Lesseps,  he  began  to  exhibit  an  active  interest  in 
politics.  He  put  his  head  out  of  the  window,  dis- 
covered the  Dreyfus  Affaire,  and  took  his  stand 
with  the  Socialists.  He  revised  his  judgments,  even 
in  matters  of  literature.  Zola,  whose  "disgusting 
celebrity  "  he  had  declined  to  envy,  and  of  whom 
he  had  written  that  no  man  had  "  so  exerted  him- 
self to  abase  humanity,  and  to  deny  everything  that 
is  good  and  right,"  became  for  him  not  only  a 
valiant  citizen,  but  even  a  great  novelist,  "  whose 
harping  had  raised  up  a  spacious  city  of  the  ideal." 
In  the  interval  M.  France  has  had  a  wider  experi- 
ence of  politics ;  he  has  rubbed  intimate  shoulders 
with  the  prophets  of  progress,  and  has  watched  the 
flux  of  events  and  the  transformations  of  men.  It 
would  be  unjust  to  say  that  Penguin  Island  is  a 
recantation  of  his  democratic  and  socialistic  utter- 
ances. He  is  still  the  son  of  the  Revolution,  and 
there  is  a  tremor  of  sincere  passion  in  his  voice  as 
he  tells  us  of  the  grimed  and  hungry  workers  who 
swarm  out  in  times  of  Royalist  aggression  to  defend 
the  Republic — the  Republic  which  nevertheless  is 
to  them  a  symbol  of  hope  merely  and  not  of  fulfil- 
ment. He  proclaims  not  the  bankruptcy  of 
Socialism,  but  rather  the   emptiness  of  politics   as 

83 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

such.  It  is  impossible  not  to  identify  France  with 
his  own  Bidault-Coquille,  the  student  of  asteroids. 
Bidault-Coquille  had  come  down  from  the  old  fire- 
escape,  from  which  he  was  accustomed  to  observe 
the  heavens,  in  order  to  fight  for  the  eternal 
principles  of  justice  which  he  took  to  be  involved 
in  the  Affaire  Pyrot  or  Dreyfus.  He  found  himself 
in  alliance  with  hysterical  adventuresses,  ambitious 
generals,  vain  journalists,  and  the  St.  Pauls  of 
Socialism,  eager  for  Utopia,  but  also  eager  for 
portfolios.  Justice  is  triumphant,  but  the  triumph 
is  clouded  with  meanness,  and  he  returns  to  his 
asteroids,  disillusioned,  and  disillusioned  most  of 
all  with  regard  to  his  own  motives.  "  Go  back  to 
your  fire-escape  and  your  stars,"  he  says  to  himself, 
"  but  go  back  in  humility  of  spirit.  You  thought 
to  yourself,  '  I  will  step  down  into  the  streets  and 
show  myself  a  noble  and  valiant  citizen.  Then  I 
shall  be  able  to  repose  calmly  in  the  esteem  of  my 
contemporaries  and  the  approval  of  history.'  But 
you  have  not  even  suffered  for  conscience  sake ;  for 
with  the  decay  of  belief  and  character  your  country- 
men have  become  incapable  of  that  savagery  which 
once  lent  a  tragic  greatness  to  the  conflict  of  ideas. 
Now  that  you  have  buried  your  illusions  ;  now  that 
you  know  how  hard  it  is  to  redress  injustice  and 
how  one  must  be  ever  beginning  anew,  you  are  going 
back  to  your  asteroids.  Go  back  then !  but  go  back 
in  humility  of  spirit." 

The  conclusion  was  inevitable,  and  rightly  con- 
sidered it  casts  no  sort  of  discredit  upon  politics.  It 
is  no  doubt  useful  that  parliament-men  should  be 
credulous  of  their  power  to  create  by  Statute  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth.  It  is  perhaps  excusable 
that  Socialism  should  believe  in  the  infinite  per- 
fectability  of  the  human  race.  But  it  is  necessary 
that  the  world  of  culture  should  retain  its  sense  of 
limitation.     Humanity  must  at  all  costs  refuse  to  be 

84 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 

satisfied  with  itself.  If  progress  belongs  at  all  to 
the  sphere  of  real  things  and  of  good  things,  its 
future  depends  on  those  who  rise  up  to  question  its 
reality.  Faust  cannot  be  redeemed  except  by  the 
serviceable  hostility  of  Mephistophles.  Anatole 
France  is  a  scandal  and  a  stumbling-block  to  many 
serious  minds.  Of  the  deep  waters  of  religion  he 
has  never  tasted  ;  he  is  a  sense  short,  or,  as  the 
psychologists  say,  he  has  a  blind  spot  on  his  soul. 
But  that  much  said,  is  it  not  wise  to  remember  that 
Ecclesiastes  also  is  among  the  prophets  ?  Is  not 
the  whole  Christian  conception  of  life  rooted  in 
pessimism,  as  becomes  a  philosophy  expressive  of  a 
world  in  which  the  ideal  can  never  quite  overcome 
the  crumbling  incoherence  of  matter  ?  May  we  not 
say  of  all  good  causes  what  Arnold  said  only  of  the 
proud  and  defeated  Celts:  "They  went  down  to 
battle  but  they  always  fell  ?"  Behind  politics  there 
is  economics  ;  behind  economics  there  is  philosophy  ; 
and  when  it  comes  to  a  philosophy  of  values,  opti- 
mism, with  regard  to  our  present  plane  of  experience, 
can  only  be  regarded  as  an  attractive  form  of  mental 
disease. 

A  comparison  of  LTle  des  Pingouins  with  Gulliver 's 
Travels  is  obvious,  although  not,  perhaps,  very  illumin- 
ating. M.  France  is  suave  where  Swift  is  barbaric;  he 
is  dainty  where  Swift  is  foul;  but  it  is  none  the  less 
true  that  Swift's  disbelief  in  humanity  was  childlike 
and  elementary  compared  with  that  which  hints 
itself  through  Penguin  Island.  Between  the  two 
there  is  the  tropical  forest  of  Romanticism  with  its 
splendid  and  noxious  blooms :  there  is  the  unplumbed, 
salt,  estranging  sea  of  all  who  have  praised  death 
rather  than  life,  from  Leopardi  and  Schopenhauer 
to  D'Annunzio  and  Hardy.  What  then?  "The 
life  of  a  people,"  writes  one  of  the  mythical  sages 
quoted  in  this  book,  "  is  a  succession  of  misfortunes, 
crimes,  and  stupidities.    This  is  true  of  the  Penguin 

85 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

nation  as  of  all  others.    But  with  that  reserve  made, 
their  history  is  admirable  from  beginning  to  end." 
There  is  a  certain  malice  in  the  phrasing,  but  who 
that    has   lived    and   suffered    would    challenge    its 
substance  of  truth  ?     Reason  and  justice  constitute, 
no  doubt,  the  elements  of  a  pure  science,  but  it  is  a 
science  of  very  imperfect  application  to  the  concrete 
world.     M,  France  has  had  the  courage  of  his  dis- 
couragement.    He    has   but   repeated    in   terms   of 
politics  what  he  had  already  said  in  terms  of  art  and 
erudition,  of  passion  and  philosophy — namely,  that 
the  eye  is  not  filled  with  seeing  nor  the  ear  with 
hearing.     Even  more  than  Bourget,  and  precisely 
because  his   touch  is   lighter   than    Bourget's,  and 
because  he  imagines  that  his  rapier  is  that  of  an 
enemy,  he  continues  the  tradition  of  that  Latin  and 
Catholic    pessimism   which    is   so    indispensable    a 
propaedeutic   to   any  valorous    religion.     We   have 
heard  of  a  tyranny  which  was  tempered  by  chansons. 
A  pessimism,  stabbed  and  gashed  with  the  radiance 
of  epigrams,  as  a  thundercloud  is  stabbed  by  lightning, 
is  a  type  of  spiritual  life  far  from  contemptible.     A 
reasonable    sadness,    chastened    by   the    music    of 
consummate  prose,  is  an  attitude  and  an  achievement 
that  will  help  many  men  to  bearwith  more  resignation 
the  burden  ot  our  century.     If  there  be  inexcusable 
flippancies,  and  there  are  many  in  L'lle  des  Pingouins, 
they   belong,    perhaps,  for   the    most   part   to   that 
temperamental  heritage  of  Latinism  which  we  bar- 
barians have  never  been  able  to  understand.    For  the 
rest,  the  book  is  merely  an  indication  that  the  cobbler 
is  about  to  return  to  his  last.     After  ten  years  of 
politics  Anatole  France  is  fatigued,  but  by  expressing 
he  has  banished  his  fatigue.     Two  lines  of  develop- 
ment seem  now  to  be  open  to  him,  and,  unhappily, 
one  of  them  is  that  facilis  decensns  which  his  master 
Renan  chose  in  his  old  age.     Les  Contes  de  Jacques 
Toumebroche — a  volume  with  curious  red  and  gold 

86 


ANATOLE  FRANCE 

and  blue  and  gold  illustrations  by  Leon  Lebegue — 
seems  to  indicate  a  declension  towards  the  lower 
level  of  his  temperament.  It  is  enough  to  say  of  this 
collection  of  stories  that  it  is  by  turns  graceful, 
mediocre,  and  abject,  and  that  there  is  not  a 
characteristic  turn  of  phrase  or  a  memorable  idea  in 
it  from  beginning  to  end.  The  other  mood  in  which 
M.  France  may  elect  to  cast  the  books  that  he  has 
yet  to  write — he  is  sixty-five — is  that  which  gave  us 
the  tenderness  of  Le  Livre  de  Mon  Ami,  and  the 
spacious  sadness  of  the  best  pages  of  Le  Jardin 
d.' Epicure.  M.  France  will  not  spend  his  last  years, 
as  Taine  did,  "  reading  Marcus  Aurelius  as  a  sort  of 
liturgical  exercise."  Epicure  of  emotions  that  he  is, 
and  that  was  Brunetiere's  judgment  against  him,  he 
will  act  on  taste  and  not  on  any  principle.  That  he 
will  choose  his  own  road  is  certain;  let  us  hope  that 
this  man,  whose  every  page  if  not  a  European  event 
(and  what  page  now  is  ?)  is  at  least  a  shining 
masterpiece  of  style,  will  choose  the  high  road. 


87 


INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALISTS 

Stuttgart,  September  1907. 

I  merely  strayed  into  Stuttgart.  The  high  peaks 
of  the  Dolomites,  and  the  higher  prices  of  Salzburg 
— Salt  City,  without  the  Lake — have  faded  into 
history.  The  Munich  Alp-tourists,  who  had  lain 
back,  limply  mountainous,  in  the  corners,  showing  in 
the  flame  of  their  faces  and  their  peeling  skins  the 
brand  of  glacier-sunshine,  have  "steiged"  heavily  out 
of  their  native  city,  where  pictures  and  potations  will 
soon  undo  the  severities  of  the  holiday  season.  You 
have  passed  Augsburg,  where  somebody  confessed 
his  insuperable  objections  to  Confession.  You  have 
drunk  a  crowded  and  unseemly  beer  at  Ulm.  And 
you  are  in  Stuttgart.  -  .  . 

The  Congress  is  going  on  in  the  Liederhalle,  a 
combined  restaurant  and  concert-hall.  As  one  sits 
here  in  the  garden,  under  an  absolute  stillness  of 
chestnuts  and  acacias,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  so  much 
of  life  as  there  is  in  the  undistinguished  building. 
Two  or  three  delegates  walk  up  and  down,  smoking 
and  meditating.  A  door-keeper  leans  on  the  bar 
counter,  under  red-and-black  and  red-and-yellow 
streamers,  and  drinks  cool,  dark  beer.  A  far-from-tidy 
Fraulein  crunches  her  leisurely  way  across  the  gravel 
to  take  your  order.  Another  has  fallen  asleep,  her 
head  leaned  back  against  a  beech  trunk.  In  the 
lines  of  her  face  there  comes  out,  as  often  in  sleep,  a 
certain  forlornness,  a  sense  of  defeated  dreams.  It 
is  a  commentary.  There  are  brown  and  twisted 
leaves  on  the  gravel ;  and  on  state-creeds  and  state- 
crafts, too,  there  comes  the  inevitable  autumn. 

88 


INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALISTS 

But  in  which  of  all  the  Utopias,  smouldering  in 
certain  fierce  eyes  that  met  yours  to-day  in  Stuttgart, 
will  there  be  no  stain  of  the  burden  and  sorrow  of 
women?  If  one  never  got  tired,  one  would  always 
be  with  the  revolutionaries,  the  re-makers,  with 
Fourier,  and  Kropotkin.  Bnt  the  soul's  energy  is 
straitly  limited  ;  and  with  weariness  there  comes  the 
need  for  compromise,  for  "machines,"  for  repetition, 
for  routine.  Fatigue  is  the  beginning  of  political 
wisdom. 

Those  who  read  the  papers  know  fairly  well  the 
resolutions,  or,  rather,  theses,  to  which  the  Congress 
said  "  Aye."  To  an  actual  spectator  the  dominant 
note  was  that  of  realism.  Here  and  there  the  vague 
music  of  a  passionate  revolt  and  an  impossible 
redemption  broke  out,  as  when  Rosa  Luxemburg, 
clutching  her  plaid  shawl,  called  up  the  bloody 
ghosts  of  Russian  comrades  in  judgment  on  the  weak 
"good-sense"  of  the  Congress.  But  most  of  the 
speakers  submitted  to  the  strict  discipline  of  fact. 
Kautsky  opposed  the  demand  for  the  legal  establish- 
ment of  a  minimum  wage.  A  powerful  argument 
was  led  to  show  that  if  you  establish  a  minimum  wage 
it  tends  to  operate  as  a  maximum.  "  Yes !  "  said 
Ellenbogen,  of  Austria.  "  Theoretically  your  position 
is  a  strong  one.  Ten  years  ago  I  should  have  voted 
for  it.  But  since  then  we  have  made  the  experiment 
in  practice.  A  "minimum  wage  of  four  francs  a  day 
has  been  established  in  Zurich,  and  it  has  not  operated 
as  a  maximum." 

The  Swiss  delegates  accepted  the  statement  of 
fact,  and  at  once  the  Congress  swung  over  to  the 
side  of  Ellenbogen.  "Practical!"  cried  Vaillant. 
"  You  are  practical  enough.  Our  programme  was 
once  a  gospel  of  enthusiasm.  Now  it  is  a  party 
machine,  a  war-chest,  a  game  of  tactics." 

In  effect  this  was  the  dominant  tone.  The  only 
vote  that  rang  in  discord  with  it  was  that  in  favour 

89 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

of  the  resolution  condemning  the  whole  work  of 
colonization  as  intrinsically  and  irredeemably  bad. 
This  decision  was  a  genuine  surprise.  Bebel, 
Vollmar,  Bernstein,  the  English  and  Americans, 
all  declared  against  it,  but  it  was,  nevertheless, 
carried.  An  analysis  of  the  majority  drew  attention 
to  another  characteristic  of  the  Congress — the 
dominance  of  the  national  idea.  Bebel  and 
Bernstein  were  sufficiently  clear  on  this  point. 
The  constitution  of  the  Congress  was  based  on  a 
recognition  of  it.  In  the  old  International  which 
was  created  by  Marx,  and  afterwards,  with  the  teeth 
of  Bakunin,  ate  Marx  up,  you  had  thorough,  abstract 
internationalism.  The  workers  were  affiliated 
directly  with  the  central  committee.  But  with 
the  Congress  of  1907  they  were  affiliated  only 
through  the  medium  of  their  national  organizations. 

This  raises  another  question.  What  will  be  the 
binding-power  and  practical  value  of  the  Stuttgart 
resolutions  ?  Are  not  those  who  claim  that  a  com- 
plete synthesis  of  nationalism  and  internationalism 
has  been  effected  a  little  premature  ?  Colonization 
and  colonies  stank  in  the  nostrils  of  the  Stuttgart 
Congress.  But  will  Mr.  Ramsay  MacDonald  in  the 
House  of  Commons  and  Herr  Bebel  in  the 
Reichstag  act   upon  that  decision  ? 

As  a  spectacle,  a  masque  of  personalities,  the 
Congress  lives  in  one's  memory.  It  may  be  a 
superficial  point  of  view,  but  it  was  irresistible. 
The  marvellous  interpreters !  Whenever  anyone 
speaks  they  must  speak,  and  they  have  spoken  for 
five  days  without  growing  hoarse. 

Of  course,  there  were  complaints.  Vaillant  com- 
plained ;  Vandervelde  ascribed  the  feud  between 
the  Labour  Party  and  the  S.  D.  F.  to  the  difficulty 
of  rendering  "  Klassenkampf  "  in  English.  Quelch 
was  verbally  mistranslated,  before  being  geographi- 
cally translated.    And  there  was  the  Indian  Princess. 

90 


INTERNATIONAL  SOCIALISTS 

Hyndman  has  a  long  beard,  which  is  a  con- 
siderable dramatic  asset.  One  still  sees  him 
shaking  his  hands  and  shouting  at  Singer,  who — 
large,  broad,  and  with  a  slight  air  of  the  police 
official — swings  the  Presidential  bell  back  and  forth, 
to  the  horror  and  final  collapse  of  all  ears.  And 
Herve,  standing  on  the  table  so  that  all  the  world 
might  see  him,  voting  for  the  majority's  anti- 
militarist  resolution  "  with  both  hands."  It  must 
not  be  thought  that  the  proceedings  were  in  the  least 
tumultuous.  They  were  vehement,  but  then  there  is 
always  the  House  of  Commons.  By  the  way,  every- 
body smoked  at  will  in  the  hall,  and  one  saw  many 
delegates  drinking  beer  at  their  tables. 

Is  there  a  definite,  Socialist  way  of  dressing?  The 
red  tie  has  long  since  gone  over  to  museums  and  to 
popular  novels.  The  fluid  felt  hat  is  not  at  all 
universal.  Does  anything  remain  ?  Well,  there  is 
Herve,  in  a  curious  tunic  buttoned  tight  up  to  the 
throat,  and  trousers  which  bag  in  an  unprecedented 
way  as  he  hurries  along,  gesticulating  with  his  knees. 
But  there  is  no  exclusive,  Socialist  dress. 

"  Do  you  think,"  I  asked  a  newspaper  man  in  the 
Hotel  Royal — the  English  delegates  were  having  a 
concert  there,  and  you  heard  the  chorus  rolled 
heavily  out  through  their  door — 

Let  cowards  flinch,  and  traitors  fear, 
We'll  keep  the  Red  Flag  flying  here — 

"  do  you  think  that  the  Congress  has  been  of  much 
use  "  "  It  will  do  more  to  guarantee  the  peace  ot 
the  world,"  he  said,  "than  twenty  Hague  Conferences. 
If  everybody  could  afford  to  travel,  there  would  be 
no  wars.  People  would  discover  their  neighbours 
to  be  so  remarkably  human.  Besides,  I  am  grateful 
to  Stuttgart  for  not  taking  it  out  of  us.  At  the  Hague 
I  paid  £22  a  month  for  two  rooms  in  a  private  house. 

9i 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

The  Brazilian  delegation  left  their  hotel  because  they 
were  charged  £34  a  day  for  four  rooms.  Peace  hath 
its  voracities  no  less  redoubtable  than  war." 

I  cannot  better  his  words.  Stuttgart  did  not  raise 
its  prices.  And  when  you  had  swept  away  precon- 
ceptions and  prejudices,  you  found  International 
Socialism  unexpectedly  human — human,  above  all, 
in  its  fundamental  mistake. 


92 


A   FRENCHMAN'S  IRELAND1 

^his  study  appears  as  the  Introduction  to  the  English  version 
of  L'Irlande  Contemporaine,  by  M.  Paul-Dubois,  published  under  the 
title  of  Contemporary  Ireland  (Maunsel  &  Co.,  Dublin). 

It  is  the  French  that  have  come  closest  to  the  secret 
of  Ireland.  De  Beaumont,  that  great  pupil  of  De 
Tocqueville,  in  1839,  Cardinal  Perraud  in  1869, 
painted  our  national  life  with  the  authoritative  brush 
of  masters.  In  addition  to  these  we  have  had  an 
unbroken  line  of  studies,  sketches,  and  monographs 
in  which  Daryl,  Bechaux,  Le  Roz,  Fournier, 
Schindler,  Potez,  Filon,  Flach,  De  Lavergne,  and  a 
cloud  of  other  witnesses  have  said  their  word. 
Edouard  Rod  shaped  the  personal  tragedy  of  Parnell 
into  a  novel ;  and  in  one  of  his  most  recent  stories 
Paul  Bourget  has  shuddered  at  the  dresses  of 
fashionable  Dublin,  and  yielded  with  lyrical  abandon 
to  the  drowsy  and  purple  magic  of  the  Western 
lotus-land.  M.  Paul-Dubois  finds  one-half  of  the 
explanation  of  this  old  alliance  in  history,  and  the 
other  in  likeness  of  blood  and  temperament.  In 
exchange  for  the  swords  of  the  Wild  Geese,  France 
sent  us  back  priests,  or  at  least  the  learning  that 
turned  Irish  boys  into  priests.  She  sent  too,  in  later 
and  not  less  disastrous  years,  Hoche  and  Humbert ; 
and  both  nations  have  good  memories,  and  until  a 
very  little  while  ago  they  shared  a  common  hatred. 
This  Irish  mind  is,  moreover,  like  the  French,  "lucid, 
vigorous  and  positive,"  though  less  methodical,  since 
it  never  had  the  happiness  to  undergo  the  Latin 
discipline.  France  and  Ireland  have  been  made  to 
understand  each  other. 

93 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

M.  Paul-Dubois,  then,  has  the  advantage  of 
temperamental  sympathy,  wise  forerunners,  and  a 
long  tradition.  He  had,  further,  the  advantage  of 
language,  for  it  is  perhaps  only  in  French  that 
vSociology  can  become  scientific  without  ceasing  to 
be  human.  His  personal  equipment  is  of  the  first 
order.  Son  of  the  late  President  of  the  Academie 
des  Beaux-Arts,  son-in-law  of  the  great  Taine,  and 
himself  one  of  the  chief  officials  of  the  Cour  des 
Comptes,  he  is  a  member  of  the  group  which 
Brunetiere's  erudite  enthusiasm  gathered  round  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  Was  it  not  Taine  who 
originated  the  phrase  "  well-documented,"  and  made 
it  the  touchstone  of  all  books  dealing  with  social 
or  historical  science  ?  At  all  events  it  is  in  that 
spirit  of  thoroughness  that  M.  Paul-Dubois  has 
wished  to  write.  The  extent  of  his  reading  may 
be  gathered  from  the  references  in  his  foot-notes. 
He  paid  more  than  one  visit  to  Ireland,  and  had 
he  but  met  some  member  of  the  Irish  Party — of 
which  he  writes  with  a  harshness  that  is  constantly 
in  contradiction  with  itself — he  might  fairly  claim 
to  have  met  everybody.  The  Irish  reader  of  his 
book  may  not  be  in  entire  agreement  with  his  con- 
clusions. To  someone  armed  with  special  knowledge 
on  this  subject,  his  exposition  may  seem  inadequate; 
to  someone  moved  by  special  passion  on  that  subject, 
his  criticism  may  even  prove  an  irritant  ;  but,  when 
all  is  said,  his  five  hundred  crowded  pages  represent 
the  attempt  of  a  mind,  at  once  scientific  and  imagi- 
native, to  see  Ireland  steadily,  and  to  see  it  whole. 
If  it  is  comforting  to  be  understood,  it  is  also  of 
some  profit  to  be  misunderstood  in  a  friendly  way. 
M.  Paul-Dubois  confesses  on  our  behalf  no  sins  that 
someone  or  other  has  not  already  shouted  from  the 
housetops.  Whatever  he  may  have  to  say  of  the 
internal  life  of  Ireland,  his  verdict  on  the  inter- 
national   issue    is   given    clearly   and  definitely   for 

94 


A  FRENCHMAN'S  IRELAND 

Ireland  and  against  England.  His  voice  is  raised 
for  the  Gaelic  League,  and  against  linguistic 
Imperialism ;  for  the  ploughed  field,  and  against 
the  grazing  ranch;  for  Home  Rule,  and  against 
the  Act  of  Union.  One  may  wish  to  enter  a  caveat 
against  this  or  that  contention,  but  the  book  is 
founded  not  on  prejudice,  or  unreasoned  feeling, 
or  raw  idealism,  but  on  a  broad  colligation  of  facts ; 
and,  with  all  reserves  made,  I  believe  that  it  will  in 
due  time  take  rank  with  the  great  studies  of  modern 
communities  like  Bodley's  "  France  "  and  Miin Stern- 
berg's "The  Americans." 

What,  then,  is  the  Irish  Question  as  seen  by  this 
sociologist,  so  inspired  and  so  equipped  ?  It  is  "  an 
extreme  case  of  social  pathology,"  an  instance  of 
the  phenomenon  called  arrested  development.  It 
is  to  history  that  one  naturally  turns  for  proof  and 
illustration  of  this  thesis  ;  and  if,  as  a  great  Shake- 
spearean critic  has  said,  tragedy  is  simply  waste, 
the  history  of  Ireland  as  it  passes  before  us  in  M. 
Paul-Dubois'  Introduction,  marshalled  in  sombre 
and  picturesque  lines,  is  essential  tragedy  indeed. 
It  matters  nothing  whether  we  approach  it  in  the 
spirit  of  those  who  desire  revenge  or  of  those  who 
desire  reconstruction  :  the  impression  is  the  same. 
A  civilization  shaken  by  Norse  invasion  before  it 
had  quite  ripened  ;  swept  by  Anglo-Norman  invasion 
before  it  had  quite  recovered  ;  a  people  plunged  in 
an  unimaginable  chaos  of  races,  religions,  ideas, 
appetites,  and  provincialisms  ;  brayed  in  the  mortar 
without  emerging  as  a  consolidated  whole  ;  tenacious 
of  the  national  idea,  but  unable  to  bringit  to  triumph  ; 
riven  and  pillaged  by  invasion  without  being  con- 
quered— how  could  such  a  people  find  leisure  to 
grow  up,  or  such  a  civilization  realize  its  full 
potentialities  of  development  and  discipline?  There 
are  writers  who  would  have  us  burn  our  Irish 
Histories.     But  the  historical  method  imposes  itself, 

95 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

not  out  of  political  passion,  but  by  a  mere  scientific 
necessity,  upon  all  students  of  contemporary  social, 
or,  indeed,  spiritual  problems.  What  is  no  doubt 
important  is  that  the  past  should  be  studied  by  the 
social  reformer  not  for  its  own  sake  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  present,  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
present.  It  is  by  this  purpose  that  M.  Paul-Dubois 
has  been  guided  in  his  masterly  Historical  Intro- 
duction ;  and  I  do  not  know  of  any  summary  of 
the  same  length  which  traces  the  forces  of  current 
Irish  life  so  clearly  to  their  origins,  and  sets  the 
fabric  of  fact,  by  which  we  are  to-day  confronted, 
in  such  true  and  vivid  perspective.  But  oyer  and 
beyond  that,  his  Introduction  possesses  the  interest 
of  literature.  The  period  since  the  Union  has  never 
been  outlined  with  more  telling  or  more  human 
touches.  O'Connell,  the  inventor  of  that  "  consti- 
tutional agitation  "  which  is  now  the  prime  weapon 
of  all  democracies,  passes  away  leaving  "  a  great 
memory  but  not  a  great  party."  Young  Ireland 
affords  us  the  supreme  instance  of  the  antithetical 
temperaments  ever  to  be  found  in  Nationalist 
politics;  Davis,  the  reformer,  inspired  by  love  of 
Ireland,  and  Mitchel,  the  revolutionist,  inspired  by 
hatred  of  England.  And  so  through  Famine  and 
Fenianism  we  come  down  to  the  brilliant  feebleness 
of  Butt  and  the  icy  passion  of  Parnell,  who  "  had 
more  followers  than  friends,"'  and  to  the  struggle  of 
the  Gaelic  Renaissance  for  "psychological  Home 
Rule." 

For  this  is,  in  last  analysis,  what  M.  Paul-Dubois 
takes  to  be  the  deep  malady  of  Ireland :  she  has 
not  gained  the  whole  world,  but  she  has  come 
perilously  near  losing  her  own  soul.  A  certain 
laxity  of  will,  a  certain  mystical  scepticism  in 
face  of  the  material  world,  an  eloquence  which,  in 
depicting  Utopias,  exhausts  the  energy  that  might 
better    be    spent    in    creating    them,    a    continual 

96 


A  FRENCHMAN'S  IRELAND 

tendency  to  fall  back  on  the  alibi  of  the  inner  life, 
make  Ireland  the  Hamlet,  or  still  more,  the  Rudin 
of  the  nations.  Is  this  to  say  that  she  is  unfit  for 
modern,  economic  civilization  ?  By  no  means. 
M.  Paul-Dubois,  having  sounded  every  weakness 
and  surveyed  every  difficulty,  ends  with  the  belief 
that  the  forces  of  re-growth  will  prevail  over  the 
process  of  decay ;  and  that  although  Ireland's  last 
cards  are  now  on  the  table,  she  is  capable,  if  she 
plays  them  well,  not  only  of  preserving  an  ancient 
people  but  of  creating  a  new  civilization. 

What  is  the  path  to  this  achievement  ?     First  of 
all,  under  the  present  regime,  England  is  the  enemy. 

If  Ireland  is  to  realize  herself,  she  must  become 
mistress  of  her  own  hearth,  her  own  purse,  and  her 
own  cupboard.  She  does  assuredly  stand  in  urgent 
need  of  peace  from  politics,  and  so  far  her  Unionist 
critics  are  right.  There  is  indubitably  a  deep  sense 
in  which  a  nation's  life  begins  where  her  politics 
end.  People  speak  as  if  the  outcry  against  Parlia- 
mentarianism  were  a  novel  and  a  unique  thing.  But, 
fifty  years  ago,  Marx  taught  all  realists  to  crack  the 
shells  of  political  formulas  and  parties  and  judge 
them  by  the  moral  and  economic  kernel  within. 
To-day  you  can  pick  up  anywhere  in  Paris  or 
Brussels  half-a-dozen  pamphlets  called  "The  Crisis 
of  Parliamentarianism,"  "  The  Absurdity  of  Parlia- 
mentarianism,"  or  "The  End  of  Parliamentarian- 
ism." But  that  peace  from  the  purely  political 
struggle,  which  is  so  indispensable  if  Ireland  is  to 
develop  character  and  create  material  wealth,  can 
come  to  her  only  as  a  result  of  political  autonomy. 
Until  autonomy  is  won — carrying  with  it  a  re-adjust- 
ment of  taxation — "  on  the  cause  must  go."  And 
the  politicians  who  keep  it  going,  whatever  their 
special  party  or  tactics,  are  playing  the  part  of 
economic  realists  quite  as  effectively  as  any  worker 
on  the  land  or  at  the  loom. 
H  97 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

M.  Paul-Dubois  naturally  devotes  many  chapters 
to  the  Land  Question.  He  rightly  treats  it  as  a 
complexus  of  three  questions — the  tenure,  the  distri- 
bution, and  the  use  of  the  land.  The  first  two  are 
being  solved,  in  a  fashion,  at  the  cost  of  Irish  taxes, 
and  by  the  pledging  of  Irish  rates,  by  the  Estates 
Commissioners  and  the  Congested  Districts  Board. 
Landlordism  is  dying,  and  dying  meanly,  "  its  last 
thought  being  of  a  bargain  to  be  made."  The  edifice 
of  Feudalism  is  being  dismantled  at  a  cost  that  raises 
a  very  real  menace  of  national  bankruptcy,  but  at  all 
events  the  grim  walls  are  coming  down.  But  while 
the  liberation  of  the  Irish  countryside  from  land- 
lordism was  necessary,  it  is  not  sufficient.  The 
farmer  must  learn  to  use  his  land  productively;  and 
so  there  must  be  a  great  development  of  agricultural 
education,  leading  up  to  a  general  system  of  "  mixed 
farming."  The  Department  of  Agriculture  must 
therefore  be  a  prime  concern  of  a  self-governing 
Ireland.  He  must  learn  to  combine;  and  in  this 
respect,  at  least  as  regards  the  small  holders, 
Co-operation  possesses  the  secret  of  the  future.  He 
must  come  free  of  the  egoism  and  pessimism  which 
have  remained  in  his  blood  since  the  Great  Famine; 
and  nothing  can  expel  these  except  the  singing  and 
dancing  Gaelic  League.  But,  even  with  all  this 
accomplished,  he  will  still  be  a  snake-strangled 
Laocoon  until  he  has  in  some  wise  reformed  and 
mastered  his  Railways  and  Banks. 

When  we  turn  to  the  industrial  condition  of  the 
country  we  find,  since  the  Union,  a  steady  degener- 
ation of  economic  tissue.  Population  doubles 
between  1800  and  1841,  but  manufacture  decays. 
The  cotton  workers  of  Belfast  fall  in  number  within 
that  period  from  27,000  to  12,000;  and  the  factory 
hands  of  Dublin  from  4,938  to  682.  The  consumption 
of  luxuries,  an  excellent  test  of  wealth,  shows  an 
immediate  decline,  tobacco  falling  in  thirty  years  by 

98 


A  FRENCHMAN'S  IRELAND 

37  per  cent,  and  wine  by  47  per  cent.  Loss  of  trade 
follows  loss  of  the  flag.  London,  having  become 
the  political  centre  of  gravity  of  Ireland,  tends  also 
to  become  her  financial  and  commercial  centre  of 
gravity.  There  is  a  diminution  of  the  productive, 
and  a  great  increase  of  the  parasitic  classes.  The 
home  market  slips  away  from  the  home  manufacturer; 
a  sort  of  mania  of  exchange  takes  possession  of  the 
country;  and  she  imports  much  that  she  might 
produce  at  home,  and  exports  much  that  she  might 
consume  at  home,  paying  ruinous  tribute  on  both 
processes  to  the  Shylocks  of  transit.  It  is  a  situation 
too  sadly  familiar  to  us  all.  M.  Paul-Dubois'  remedy, 
too,  is  familiar;  it  is  the  programme  of  the  men  of 
1779  and  of  the  Industrial  Pioneers  of  to-day.  Use 
at  home  as  many  as  you  need  of  the  things  that  are 
made  at  home,  and  make  at  home  as  many  as 
possible  of  the  things  that  are  used  at  home.  He 
neither  anticipates  nor  desires  any  notable  develop- 
ment of  industry  on  the  great  scale,  but  looks  for 
the  prosperity  of  Ireland  to  progressive  agriculture, 
and  the  smaller  rural  industries  that  come  naturally 
to  cluster  around  it. 

Such  is,  in  bare  outline,  the  diagnosis  of  Ireland 
made  by  this  detached  and  sympathetic  student. 
He  touches  upon  many  other  subjects,  upon  that  of 
Clericalism  and  Anti-Clericalism,  with  particular 
delicacy  and  insight.  One  may  regret  that,  with  his 
French  experience,  he  does  not  discuss  such  problems 
as  that  now  rising  very  definitely  on  the  political 
horizon :  Does  Ireland  stand  to  gain  or  to  lose  by 
Protection  ?  One  may  find  a  fault  of  line  or  of  colour 
here  and  there,  or  chance  on  an  irritating  phrase. 
But  on  the  whole  and  as  a  whole  this  is  the  best 
book  that  has  been  written  in  recent  years  on  the 
problems  of  Ireland.  The  meaner  journalism  may 
seek  in  it  for  nothing  better  than  party  capital.  But 
the  worker  in  any  Irish  movement,  who  possesses 

99 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

the  supreme  wisdom  of  humility,  and  who  had  rather 
be  bettered  than  flattered,  will  be  glad  to  have  seen 
himself  in  M.  Paul-Dubois'  mirror.  His  last  message 
is  one  of  hope.  He  ma]',  as  his  Conclusion  shows, 
have  under-rated  the  resolution  of  Ireland  to  secure 
integral  Home  Rule — a  National  Government  being 
a  delicate  and  intricate  machine  which  cannot  be  set 
working  in  halves.  He  may,  by  times,  have  seemed 
to  forget  that  there  are  many  kinds  of  Conciliation, 
that,  for  instance,  an  infalliable  method  of  conciliating 
a  tiger  is  to  allow  oneself  to  be  devoured.  But,  as 
between  us  and  our  rulers,  he  gives  his  verdict,  on 
the  evidence,  for  Ireland  and  against  England.  And 
he  foreshadows  a  possible  unification  of  all  progres- 
sive parties  on  the  Irish  side,  a  tacit  Concordat 
under  which,  on  the  sole  condition  that  the  national 
idea  be  not  submerged  or  the  national  flag  lowered 
in  surrender,  all  progressive  parties  would  come  to 
regard  themselves  as  but  different  regiments  of  the 
same  Army  of  Advance.     May  that  hope  come  true! 


ioo 


ON  SAYING  GOOD-BYE 

The  smell  of  the  sea,  so  raw  and  stringent  in  a 
landsman's  nostrils,  brings  thoughts  with  it  and  a 
strange  spume  of  memories.  To  me  it  brings  a  per- 
ception of  what  people  mean  when  they  toss  in  the 
air  that  dusty  adjective,  "  cynical."  A  cynic  is  a 
man  who,  finding  himself,  for  all  striving,  incurably 
sad  from  the  lips  in,  sets  himself  to  be  incorrigibly  gay 
from  the  lips  out.  It  is  a  triumph  of  will  over 
temperament,  a  way  of  courage,  and,  by  times,  even 
a  way  of  nobleness. 

So  it  appears  to  me  at  least  with  the  wash  of  the 
river  about  the  brattling  boat.  But  why  should 
cables  and  gangways,  cranes  and  the  throb  of  steam, 
waved  white  handkerchiefs  and  all  that  apparatus 
of  adieu,  set  anyone  framing  definitions  of  "  cynic- 
ism"? It  is  because  a  dead  Frenchman,  who  had 
not  wit  enough  even  to  keep  himself  from  being 
forgotten,  a  cynic  as  they  say,  one  Brizeux,  murmurs 
to  himself  in  one  of  his  comedies  as  I  murmur  to 
myself  every  time  I  leave  Ireland:  "Do  not  cry 
out  against  la  patrie.  Your  native  land  after  all  will 
give  you  the  two  most  exquisite  pleasures  of  your 
life,  that  of  leaving  her  and  that  of  coming  back." 
He  left  many  other  sharp  sentences  along  his  way, 
but  I  only  remember  that  of  Cecile  after  she  had 
transferred  her  affections.  "  And  to  think  that  six 
months  ago  I  loved  Alphonse  !  Mon  Dieu  !  How 
he  has  changed  !  " 

There  are  no  taxis  in  my  native  city  of  Dublin. 
But  the  depressed  jarvey  who  drove  me  to  the 
North  Wall  knows  that  they  are  coming.  He  starts 
already  in  his  dreams  at  the  hoot  of  their  horns. 

101 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

You  cannot  stand  against  science,  he  says:  look  at 
Corbett,  and  Tommy  Burns,  and  Johnson.  A  man 
can't  get  bread  at  it  nowadays,  although,  of  course, 
"  when  a  body  meets  a  free-spoken,  free-handed 
gentleman  like  yourself,  sir ;  none  o'  these  mane 
divils  that'd  be  resthrictin'  you  to  your  legal  fare, 
mind  you.  .  .  ."  The  electric  trams  were  bad 
enough,  but  this  other  would  be  the  end.  The 
Merrion  Square  doctors  were  good  friends  of  the 
poor  man,  would  think  nothing  of  taking  your  car 
for  two  or  three  hours  and  leaving  a  sovereign  in  your 
palm,  but  first  one  got  a  motor,  and  now  they  all  have 
motors.     What  is  one  to  say  ? 

A  member  of  Parliament  ought  to  be  a  minister 
of  consolation,  at  all  events  in  matters  of  livelihood. 
All  that  occurs  to  me  to  tell  my  driver  is  that  he  is 
an  element  in  an  interesting  transition  in  the  organ- 
ization of  transport.  The  domestication  of  horses 
created  him  and  his  tribe,  the  domestication  of  petrol 
is  in  course  of  blotting  them  out.  Mr.  Galsworthy 
will  write  a  play  on  the  subject  and  make  us  quiver 
unhelpfully ;  and  there  is  always  the  workhouse 
coffin  to  look  to,  and  an  absolutely  gratuitous  burial. 
Meantime,  he  had  better  be  rehearsing  his  adieus. 
But  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  dropping  that  oil 
into  his  wounds.  There  will,  one  fears,  be  more 
hunger  than  dignity  in  his  leave-taking.  Semi- 
starvation,  mitigated  by  a  gay  heart  and  an  incessant 
tongue,  will  take  him,  and  not  gently,  by  the  hand, 
and  show  him,  the  Way  Out.  And  by  way  of 
monument  he  shall  have,  perhaps,  the  one-ten 
millionth  part  of  a  paragraph  in  some  economic 
history  that  will  be  written  by  some  sociologist  of 
Teutonic  extraction. 

An  old  woman,  once  questioned  by  a  journalist, 
declared  that  the  only  bothersome  thing  about 
walking  was  that  the  miles  began  at  the  wrong  end. 
Kant,  who  could  talk  to  Time  and  Space  like  an 

102 


ON  SAYING  GOOD-BYE 

equal,  is  dead,  and  so  nobody  will  ever  know  what 
the  old  lady  meant.  I  record  the  observation  here 
merely  because  it  sounds  so  horribly  intelligent. 

But   there   is   a   constant    heart-break    in    travel 
which    comes   from   this  that  every  departure  is  a 
sort  of  geographical  suicide.     To  live  anywhere  even 
for  an  hour  or  a  day  is  to  become  inwoven  into  a 
manifold  tissue,  material  and  spiritual.     You  cannot 
pluck  yourself  suddenly  out  without  carrying  a  fringe 
of  destruction,  and  it  is  your  own  personality  that 
dies   in    every   snapped   fibre.      Philosophers  have 
thought  of  the  soul  as  a  spiritus — a  rapid  gust  of 
breath  blown  along  the   worlds  and  quickly  dissi- 
pated.    In  truth  our  conscious  life  is  like  a  white 
drift  of  fog  that  leaves  a  vestige  of  itself  clinging 
to  every  object  that  it  passes.     It  is  a  sustained  good- 
bye.    I  cannot  reach  any  thought  except  by  leaving 
another.     Even  so  common  and  kindly  an  experi- 
ence  as  dinner  is  not   exempt   from  this  spiritual 
succession   duty:    your   coffee    is    bitter   with   the 
unspoken  adieus  of  the  soup,  and  the  fish,  and  the 
fowl,   and  the  roast  over  whose   graves   you   have 
marched  to  fulfilment.     Life  is  a  cheap  table  d'h6te 
in  a  rather  dirty  restaurant,  with  Time   changing 
the  plates  before  you  have  had  enough  of  anything. 
We   were   bewildered  at  school  to  be  told  that 
walking  was  a  perpetual  falling.     But  life  is,  in  a 
far  more  significant  way,  a  perpetual  dying.     Death 
is  not  an  eccentricity,  but   a   settled   habit  of  the 
universe.     The  drums  of  to-day  call  to  us,  as  they 
call  to  young  Fortinbras  in  the  fifth  act  of  Hamlet, 
over  corpses  piled  up  in  such  abundance  as  to  be 
almost  ridiculous.     We  praise  the  pioneer,  but  let 
us  not  praise  him  on  wrong  grounds.     His  strength 
lies  not  in  his  leaning  out  to  new  things — that  may 
be  mere  curiosity — but  in  his  power  to  abandon  old 
things.     All  his  courage  is  a  courage  of  adieus. 
The  romance  of  travel  appealed  to  many  in  old 

103 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

days,  and  now,  after  menace  of  extinction,  it  has 
been  conclusively  restored  by  the  Tariff  Reform 
deputations.  Others  were  light  enough  to  think  that 
no  one  can  travel  without  striking  one  day  upon  the 
path  of  wisdom.  But  this  cannot  altogether  be 
granted.  We  Leinstermen  used  to  hit  off  the 
idealism  of  distance  in  a  proverb  :  "  All  the  cows 
in  Connaught  have  long  horns."  Clarence  Mangan 
was  of  the  same  mind  : 

Moor,  Egyptian,  Persian,  Turk  and  Roman 
Thread  one  common  downhill  path  of  doom  ; 

Everywhere  the  word  is  man  and  woman, 
Everywhere  the  old  sad  sins  find  room. 

But  Brizeux  cuts  deeper  when  he  shows  that  the 
true  value  of  going  away  is  that  it  enables  one  to 
come  back.  I  once  knew  a  man  who  was  commis- 
sioned by  a  railway  company  to  write  a  booklet  on 
the  attractions  of  certain  towns,  among  others,  Xyz. 
He  produced  this  page  :  "  Attractions  of  Xyz.  Print 
here  in  large  type  all  the  trains  by  which  it  is 
possible  to  leave  Xyz."  He  was  a  native  of  it,  and 
in  such  a  light  must  one's  native  place  sometimes 
appear.  You  burn  to  break  the  monotone  with  a 
great  shout,  to  shake  its  trivial  dust  off  your  feet,  to 
strain  to  yours  the  throbbing  bosom  of  life,  to  mix 
brooks  and  stars  and  art  and  love  and  youth  into  one 
crashing  orchestra  of  experience.  And  then,  when 
you  have  taken  this  wide  way,  you  find  yourself 
burning  to  come  back  to  that  native  place  of  yours 
where,  as  you  now  remember,  the  water  was  more 
cordial  than  wine,  and  the  women  sweeter  than 
angels. 

There  is  only  one  journey,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in 
this  inweaving  of  parables  and  facts,  in  which  we 
attain  our  ideal  of  going  away  and  going  home  at 
the  same  time.  Death,  normally  encountered,  has 
all   the   attractions   of  suicide  without   any  of  its 

104 


ON  SAYING  GOOD-BYE 

horrors.  The  old  woman  when  she  comes  to  that 
road  will  find  the  miles  beginning  at  the  right  end. 
We  shall  all  bid  our  first  real  adieu  to  those  brother- 
gaolers  of  ours,  Time  and  Space;  and  though  the 
handkerchiefs  flutter,  no  lack  of  courage  will  have 
power  to  cheat  or  defeat  us.  "  However  amusing 
the  comedy  may  have  been,"  wrote  Pascal,  "  there 
is  always  blood  in  the  fifth  act.  They  scatter  a  little 
dust  on  your  face;  and  then  all  is  over  for  ever." 
Blood  tbere  may  be,  but  blood  does  not  necessarily 
mean  tragedy.  The  wisdom  of  humility  bids  us 
pray  that  in  that  fifth  act  we  may  have  good  lines 
and  a  timely  exit ;  but,  fine  or  feeble,  there  is  com- 
fort in  breaking  the  parting  word  into  its  two 
significant  halves,  a  Dieu.  Since  life  has  been  a 
constant  slipping  from  one  good-bye  into  another, 
why  should  we  fear  that  sole  good-bye  which 
promises  to  cancel  all  its  fore-runners  ? 

1910. 


105 


MISCELLANEOUS  ESSAYS 


LABOUR    AND    CIVILIZATION 

The  dogmatic  mantle  has  long  since  fallen  out  of 
fashion  among  economists.  That  too  pushing 
omniscience,  once  imputed  to  the  tribe  by  satirists, 
angers  nobody  now ;  it  exists  only  as  a  memory  of 
veterans.  Economics  is  no  longer  presented  as  an 
integral,  or  even  a  partial,  Rule  of  Life :  if  the 
modern  masters  of  the  science  are  guilty  of  any  sin 
in  that  regard  it  is  an  excessive  reluctance  in  counsel. 
The  critic  complains,  if  at  all,  of  their  remoteness 
and  detachment.  They  have  organized  too  well 
their  escape  from  real  life,  some  into  history,  some 
into  the  serene  shadow-land  of  mathematics. 

This  attitude  reflects  through  a  special  medium 
the  mind  of  the  community.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
there  were  ever  before  in  the  world  at  any  moment 
so  many  honest,  bewildered  men.  We  feel,  most  of 
us,  as  much  astray  and  amazed  as  a  peasant 
suddenly  plunged  into  the  clamour  of  dynamos,  or 
into  that  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  The  twentieth 
century,  which  cuts  such  a  fine  figure  in  encyclo- 
paedias, is  most  familiarly  known  to  the  majority  of 
its  children  as  a  new  sort  of  headache.  And  its 
moral  burden  is  felt  to  be  unbearable.  In  a  simple 
social  organization,  justice  is  an  ideal  that  carries 
straight  to  the  mark.  It  is  constantly  reinforced  by 
obvious  fulfilment.  It  does  not  get  lost  on  the  way. 
But  in  our  vast  and  unimaginable  maze  of  interde- 
pendent processes  and  reactions,  mere  honest)7  comes 
to  appear  to  the  discouraged  mind  as  the  laudable, 
but  entirely  fruitless,  caprice  of  a  cipher.  Any 
personal  attempt  to  redress  the  balance  of  distribution 
is  commonly  regarded  as  either  a  freak,  an  imperti- 

109 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

nence,  a  nullity,  or  a  betrayal.  Raise  voluntarily  the 
wages  of  your  workmen,  and  you  are  "branded"  as 
a  traitor  to  your  class.  Improve  factory  conditions 
that  fall  within  your  own  control,  and  you  are 
denounced  for  a  subtle  intrigue  against  the  loyalty  of 
your  workers  to  their  class.  You  are  gilding  the  oats 
of  servitude  for  your  slaves.  Intervene  in  a  strike 
with  an  appeal  for  peace,  and  you  become  a  Derby 
dog  for  the  contempt  and  the  missiles  of  both  parties 
to  the  quarrel.  Try  to  give  a  penny  to  a  poor 
woman  outside  the  church  door  after  Mass,  and  all 
civilization  is  mobilized  to  prevent  such  a  horror. 
Adhere  to  the  opposite  view  that  salvation  is  only  of 
a  committee,  that  everything  must  be  anonymous, 
departmentalized,  and  even  State-managed,  and  you 
are  in  no  better  case.  Oppose  the  Insurance  Act, 
for  instance,  and  Mr.  Masterman  characterizes  you 
as  a  thick-hided  and  miserly  individualist.  Accept 
it,  and  Mr.  Belloc  trounces  you  as  a  hireling  prophet, 
and  forerunner  of  the  Servile  State.  Tolerate  or 
even  explain  Mr.  Larkin,  and  you  are  a  mad, 
contract-breaking  anarchist.  Support  Mr.  Ramsay 
Macdonald  against  him,  and  you  are  either  a  crawling 
fusionist  and  trimmer,  or,  in  the  alternative,  the  dupe 
of  a  wrecker,  who  is  all  the  more  dangerous  because 
of  his  smooth  and  plausible  ways. 

I  do  not  wish  to  exaggerate,  but  it  is  a  fact  of 
daily  experience  that  many  a  fine  straightness  of 
purpose  is  getting  itself  twisted  in  the  confusion  of 
the  times.  The  violent  splutter  of  adjectives  which 
passes  for  social  philosophy,  not  only  among  the 
untrained  missionaries  of  discontent  but  also  among 
the  well-trained  orthodox,  is  admirably  calculated  to 
produce  that  spiritual  nausea  which  we  call  cynicism. 
Not  a  little  of  the  restless  end  even  desperate 
frivolity,  which  is  deplored  as  the  characteristic  vice 
of  the  age,  may  be  traced  to  that  source.  Many 
people,  and  not  always  the  worst,  feel  sincerely  that 

no 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

they  have  minds  equal  to  the  task  of  taking  the 
world  flippantly,  but  not  equal  to  anything  more 
serious.  They  turn  with  hectic  enthusiasm  to  Auction 
Bridge  and  the  Tango,  partly  because  they  cannot 
find  a  key  to  the  graver  business  of  civilization.  They 
are  not  enemies  to  the  light,  but  merely  aliens.  They 
will  tell  you  that  they  are  not  on  the  road  to 
Damascus  largely  because  they  cannot  find  it,  and 
the  excuse  will  not  be  without  a  certain  tinge  or 
infiltration  of  truth.  The  road  upon  which  they  are 
is,  in  truth,  paved  with  good  intentions:  one  can  see 
that,  and,  dazed  by  the  contention  of  the  guides,  can 
understand  the  weariness  that  unshouldered  baggage 
so  awkward. 

Such  is  the  psychology  of  some  part  at  least  of 
our  faineance.  The  remainder  is  not  so  respectable 
in  its  origins,  and  neither  imagines  itself  nor  is 
imagined  to  be  anything  more  complex  than  the 
static  inertia  of  comfort.  But  that  there  is  sincere 
trouble  of  mind  among  men  of  goodwill  may  be 
taken  as  beyond  question.  It  is  palpably  there,  it 
is  real,  and  it  is  so  deeply  and  variously  rooted  in 
everyday  conditions  as  to  be  difficult  even  to  reach 
with  any  hope  of  dispersal.  But  there  is  nothing  to 
justify  the  throwing  up  of  impotent  hands.  Impos- 
sibilism  is  a  poor  word  and  an  unmanly  doctrine. 
We  have  got  to  keep  moving  on,  and,  since  that  is 
so,  we  had  better  put  as  good  thought  as  we  can 
into  our  itinerary.  The  task  of  civilization  was 
never  easy.  Freedom — the  phrase  belongs  to 
Fichte,  or  to  someone  of  his  circle — has  always 
been  a  battle  and  a  march :  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
both  that  they  should  appear  to  be  the  participants, 
during  the  heat  of  movement,  as  planless  and 
chaotic.  The  Bill  Adamses  do  in  fact  win  the 
Waterloo  of  history,  but  they  do  not  know  how. 
It  is  their  sons,  pouring  over  picture  books,  who 
grasp  the  tactical  integrity  of  the  affair,  and  their 

in 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

grandsons  who  understand  its  human  significance. 
Whatever  else  economic  life  may  be,  it  is  of  late 
very  plainly  a  battle.  But  no  such  lapse  of  time  is 
now  needed  for  comprehension  :  it  explains  itself  as 
it  goes  on.  The  policy  of  labour  is  no  longer  an 
eyeless,  instinctive  groping  ;  it  is  a  mature  and  self- 
conscious  campaign.  It  has  its  definite  goal,  its 
metaphysics,  its  very  sophisticated  poetry.  The 
rest  of  society  has  undergone  a  similar  mental 
transformation.  It  has  acquired  the  faculty  of 
doubling  the  roles  of  actor  and  spectator.  It  has 
at  hand  information  not  before  available  as  to  con- 
ditions of  life.  In  short  it  is  able,  although  not 
without  an  effort,  to  rationalize  its  development, 
and  to  elect  between  the  alternatives  posed  in 
practical  conflict. 

In  the  perplexity  spoken  of  there  is  probably  a 
considerable  leaven  of  self-deception.  The  dead 
weight  of  details  overwhelms  us,  largely  because  we 
lack  the  courage  of  the  obvious.  We  are  muscle- 
bound,  not  precisely  by  downright  egotism  or 
dullness,  but  by  that  unaccountable  palsy,  some- 
times experienced,  in  which  mind  and  brain  seem  to 
be  cloven  into  unrelated  halves.  The  goads  of 
economic  life  we  grasp  with  one  ualf  of  ourselves  as 
the  grossest  of  platitudes  ;  the  responsive  kicks  and 
twitchings  are  regarded  by  the  other  half  as  a  dark 
and  evil  paradox.  The  simple  truth  is  that,  in  con- 
temporary conditions,  what  we  call  the  Labour 
Unrest  is  just  as  normal  as  pain  in  disease.  There 
is  a  proved  discord  between  the  business  order  of 
things  on  the  one  part,  and  the  human  order  on  the 
other.  Our  industrial  system  clashes  not  only  with 
ethical,  but  even  with  physiological  requirements. 
Thirty  per  cent,  of  our  whole  population  dwell  just 
on  or  just  below  the  hunger  line,  and  local  or 
seasonal  disadvantages  depress  a  great  body  of 
them  to  a  level  even  lower.     Our  contemporary  age, 

112 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

if  marked  out  in  the  calendar  by  its  humane  enthu- 
siasms, is  also  unhappily  marked  out  by  rising  prices. 
If  the  worker  is  pinched  and  cramped  in  respect  of 
those  two  fundamentals,  food  and  clothing,  his 
relation  to  the  third,  shelter,  is  even  more  abject. 
The  plenitude  of  large-scale  production,  and  power 
transport,  has  cheapened  wheat  and  woollens  much 
more  effectively  than  it  has  cheapened  houses.  It 
is  not  only  in  Dublin  that  the  damnosa  haereditas  of 
the  slum  curtains  the  cradle  of  the  poor  with  its 
misery  and  its  defilement.  All  this  we  know  very 
Avell :  we  repeat  it  over  and  over  till  it  becomes 
almost  an  idle  tale,  and  the  next  moment  we  are 
crying  out  with  astonishment  at  some  fresh  strike. 
That  is  not  a  wise,  or  even  an  intelligible  attitude. 
The  first  principle  to  lay  firm  hold  on,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  is  the  causal  bond  between  want  and  unrest. 
The  continual  heel-flingings  of  which  we  complain 
are  really  reflex  rather  than  deliberate.  It  will 
further  be  discovered  to  be  a  sound,  though  a  rough, 
working-clue  to  assume  that  all  strikes  are  the  same 
strike.  If  we  are  to  master  the  situation  at  all  we 
must  think  of  the  worker  not  as  a  unit  in  a  Board 
of  Trade  table,  nor  yet  as  a  nihilist,  a  metaphysician, 
or  a  prophet.  Taking  him  as  we  find  him,  we  are, 
especially  in  these  countries,  in  presence  of  a  man 
concrete  in  temper  almost  to  the  point  of  earthiness. 
He  offers  the  most  unpromising  material  for  a 
chapter  in  demonology.  Not  only  does  he  prefer 
peace  to  war,  but  he  even  prefers  work  to  idleness. 
No  other  man  in  the  state  accepts  so  stoutly  the 
discipline  of  incessant  striving,  or  savours  so  heartily 
the  frugal  comforts  and  common  pleasures  of 
existence.  Let  me  not  seem  to  suggest  the  absurd 
and  belittling  notion  that  he  is  devoid  of  idealism. 
Certain  of  his  theorists  have  indeed  constantly 
treated  him  as  a  mere  resultant  of  appetites;  but 
a   Catholic   at   least   knows    that,    at    his    highest, 

i  113 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

he  has  been  the  guardian  and  keeper  of  the  shrine. 
But  he  is  a  man  who  lives,  if  the  phrase  be  allowed, 
very  close  to  life,  and  very  far  away  from  all  species 
of  cloudy  architecture.  His  revolutions  are 
essentially  revolutions  of  the  kitchen  cup-board. 
In  substance,  if  not  in  technical  form,  his 
ententes  all  relate  back  to  such  tremendous  sim- 
plicities as  that.  When  he  rises  against  the  dis- 
missal of  a  Driver  Knox,  for  instance,  he  is  not 
concerned  in  the  least  to  assert  what  some  of  his 
Corinthians  have  formulated  as  the  divine  right  to 
get  drunk  outside  business  hours.  Nor  is  it  the  core 
of  his  grievance  that  the  frontiers  of  his  leisure  have 
been  violated,  or  that  his  social  habits  have  been 
subjected  to  criticism.  It  is  that  any  rash  or  fussy 
person,  set  in  authority,  has  the  power  to  call  into 
action  against  him,  suddenly  and  on  any  lightest 
pretext,  good  or  bad,  that  armoury  of  which  the 
chief  weapon  is  starvation.  When  a  Trade  Union 
is  fighting  for  recognition,  a  very  brief  inquiry  will 
show  you  that  the  typical  combatant  is  not,  in  the 
last  analysis,  very  passionately  interested  in  the 
abstract  or  the  remote.  He  regards  his  organization 
not  as  a  piece  of  grandiose  mythology,  after  the 
fashion  of  a  Pouget,  a  Sorel,  or  even  a  Larkin,  but 
as  a  known  and  definite  mode  of  putting  or  keeping 
wages  up. 

Side  by  side  with  this  practical  tradition,  ambient 
about  it  like  a  sort  of  astral  body,  there  is  also  of 
course  the  metaphysical  tradition  of  labour.  That 
is,  in  some  of  its  phases,  visionary  and  sinister 
enough  to  justify  the  most  picturesque  of  night- 
mares. In  its  place  it  merits  the  most  careful  study. 
But  with  the  ordinary  striker,  or  "  unrestful " 
worker  it  has  very  little  to  do.  And  that  is  a  very 
fortunate  circumstance.  The  great  task  of  to-day 
is  to  rally  the  worker  to  civilization.  If  the  panic- 
pictures   of    him    were    true,    that    would    be    an 

114 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

impossible  task.  If  it  were  true  that  the  worker 
really  desired  to  end  the  present  organization  of 
society,  there  is  no  power  on  earth  that  could  balk, 
or  even  long  postpone,  his  passage  from  will  to  deed. 
You  could  not  invoke  against  him  the  authority  of 
Parliament,  for  in  democratic  states  he  is  the 
majority  that  creates  and  could  control  Parliament. 
Nor  could  you  appeal  to  force,  for  he  is  the  police, 
the  arm}'  and  the  navy.  The  fact  is  so  obvious  as 
to  demand  no  elaboration.  It  forms  the  ground- 
work of  what  is  perhaps  the  most  lyrical  invitation, 
and  at  the  same  time  the  angriest  rebuke  in  all  the 
prophetic  books  of  revolutionism.  But  the  prophets 
of  overthrow  are  altogether  wrong  in  believing  that 
the  quiescence  of  labour  is  due  to  the  apathy  of 
habit,  to  lack  of  imagination,  or  to  cowardice.  The 
worker  will  not  make  an  end  of  civilization  simply 
because  he  is  himself  a  civilized  man.  He  feels — 
for  it  is  feeling  rather  than  logic — that  there  is  in 
our  system  of  private  ownership,  despite  everything, 
a  sort  of  bedrock  fitness  and  necessity.  The  justice 
towards  which  he  is  groping  is  there,  if  not  in 
actuality  at  any  rate  as  a  ratio  seminalis.  Scientific 
control  of  nature  is  there,  adequate,  if  it  be  but 
guided  by  common  sense  and  good  will,  to  the  con- 
quest of  destitution.  Scope  is  there  for  the  play 
of  personality ;  and  to  a  man,  whose  unrealized 
ambitions  cry  out  anew  for  fulfilment  in  his  children, 
that  is  by  no  means  the  least  virtue  of  our  system. 
The  worker  is  already  rallied  to  the  idea,  to  the 
schematic  essence  of  our  Western  civilization.  Our 
task  is  to  rally  him  to  its  actual  shape  by  so  trans- 
forming that  latter,  as  given  to  us  by  the  accidents 
of  history,  that  it  shall  be  fit  for  the  habitation  of 
the  idea. 

Some  apology  should  perhaps  be  offered  for  such 
an  italicizing  of  the  obvious.  But  if  a  landscape  is, 
as  has  been  said,  a  state  of  mind,  a  society  is,  in  an 

ii5 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

even  deeper  sense,  a  state  of  mind  or  rather  of  will. 
One  of  the  effects  of  terror  with  some  people  is  to 
make  them  shut  their  eyes:  it  is  a  duty  of  those  of 
us  who,  although  frightened,  are  not  so  badly 
frightened,  to  give  evidence  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
things  we  see. 

If  the  foregoing  analysis  is,  in  its  main  lines,  correct, 
it  follows  that  there  is  not  much  matter  to  be  learned 
from  a  minute  consideration  of  recent  upheavals  such 
as  those  of  Dublin,  and,  on  a  smaller  scale,  of  Leeds. 
There  was  something  Byronic  about  the  Dublin 
struggle:  it  taught  us  little,  but  we  undoubtedly 
"felt  it  like  a  thunder-roll."  No  note  of  the  whole 
scale  of  melodrama  was  absent.  Patriotism  and 
bread-and-butter,  bread-and-butter  and  religion, 
religion  and  economic  solidarity,  nationalism  and 
internationalism,  diplomacy  and  war,  the  catastro- 
phic method  and  the  gradual,  dictatorship  and 
democracy,  and  one  knows  not  how  many  other 
great  ideas  were  clashed  against  one  another  in 
arbitrary  and  hopeless  antithesis.  Stones,  batons, 
nearly  all  the  pomp  and  all  the  not  infrequent 
absurdity  of  the  law,  secret  councils,  processions, 
amazing  perorations,  epigrams  that  were  veritable 
wads  of  gun-cotton,  disguises,  slayings,  arrests,  and 
escapes — it  was  all  in  the  mode  not  merely  of  melo- 
drama, but  of  the  cinema  theatre.  It  is  in  the  nature 
of  a  very  miserable  destiny  that  everything  that 
happens  in  Ireland,  from  a  public  banquet  to  a 
private  funeral,  should  be  seized  on  as  affording  a 
conclusive  reason  against  Home  Rule,  the  Catholic 
hierarchy,  the  Gaelic  League,  the  Gulf  Stream  or 
some  other  of  our  special  iniquities.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  the  Dublin  strike  proved  to  a 
large  number  of  enthusiastic  writers  that  all  their 
worst  fears,  and  their  best  hopes,  on  both  sides  of  all 
questions  affecting  our  future  were  more  than 
justified.     The  serious  significance  of  it  is  perhaps 

116 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

best  reached  in  a  less  confident  way.  By  a  strange 
paradox  it  was  at  once  the  most  individual,  and  the 
most  general  of  all  recent  outbreaks.  Of  all  the 
great  cities  of  the  United  Kingdom,  Dublin  is  the 
weakest  in  economic  structure.  It  is  a  capital  of 
government  officials,  professional  men,  annuitants; 
its  wealth,  such  as  it  is,  is  concentrated  in  those 
classes  which  the  popular  mind,  untruly  and  yet  not 
fantastically,  regards  as  parasitical.  Their  incomes 
are  drawn  not  from  the  volume  of  local  production, 
but  from  that  larger  stream  of  national  production 
which  is  tributary  to  their  specialized  pursuits,  though 
not  to  others.  The  business  world  is  occupied  chiefly 
with  carrying  and  commerce,  very  little  with  manu- 
facture. The  great  body  of  the  workers  are  engaged 
in  low-wage  occupations.  Not  less  than  one-fourth 
of  the  population  is  constantly  below  the  human 
minimum.  Housing  is  particularly  bad,  the  "poor 
street"  being  in  the  typical  instance  a  decayed  "good 
street,"  planned  originally  for  other  uses  and  wholly 
unsuitable  to  that  to  which  it  has  come.  The  labour 
propaganda  had  hardly  reached  the  mass  of  the 
unskilled:  organization  was  almost  unknown  to  them. 
On  this  terrain  appeared  suddenly  the  disturbing 
personality  of  Mr.  Larkin.  Picturesque,  eloquent, 
prophetic,  at  once  dictatorial  and  intimate,  he  was, 
as  he  might  say  himself,  the  very  man  for  the  job. 
The  Dublin  worker  is  not  a  natural  revolutionary, 
but  he  is  a  natural  soldier.  Mr.  Larkin,  appealing 
at  once  to  all  his  instincts,  organized  not  so  much  a 
Union  as  an  army.  In  a  long  series  of  attacks,  the 
main  strength  of  which  resided  in  the  fact  that  they 
were  sudden  and  concentrated  on  a  single  employer 
or  group  of  employers,  he  won  much  oftener  than  he 
lost.  His  opponents  were  taken  by  surprise.  In 
many  instances  they  had  but  a  very  poor  defence: 
wages  were  not  only  under  the  human  minimum,  but 
in  some  trades  they  were  clearly  lower  than  business 

TI7 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

could  bear,  and  they  had  not,  for  an  unduly  long 
time,  shown  any  improvement.  In  all  cases  the 
employers  were  inadequately  trained  to  modern 
methods  of  industrial  diplomacy.  Without  quite 
knowing  what  they  were  about,  they  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  manoeuvred  into  an  apparent  challenge 
to  the  fundamental  principle  of  Trade  Unionism. 
Both  in  argument,  and  in  conflict,  they  failed  very 
notably  to  hold  their  own.  A  condition  of  day-to-day 
menace  and  insecurity  was  created;  no  employer, 
sitting  down  to  his  correspondence  in  the  morning, 
felt  certain  that  his  men  would  not  be  called  out  by 
telephone  before  the  dinner-hour.  But  among  the 
employers  also  the  idea  of  solidarity  began  to 
germinate.  They,  too,  by  one  of  those  chances  or 
ordinations  that  supply  most  of  the  interest  of 
history,  found  a  leader  of  the  requisite  type  at  the 
crucial  momemt.  Mr.  William  Murphy  is  a  humane 
man,  known  for  his  personal  honour  and  charity ;  a 
"good  employer"  as  it  is  called,  a  successful  captain 
of  enterprise,  an  insensitive  imagination,  in  short,  a 
very  dangerous  opponent.  Under  his  impulsion  they 
consolidated  their  forces.  How  far  the  process  of 
federation  went,  what  was  the  nature  of  its  financial 
basis,  what  subventions,  if  any,  it  received  from  the 
English  federated  employers  we  do  not  know.  But 
these  facts,  if  known,  would  furnish  us  with  the 
master-key  to  the  course  of  the  struggle.  What  is 
evident  is  that  when  the  Dublin  committee  declared 
that  they  had  made  up  their  minds  "to  smash 
Larkinism"  and  to  drive  him  out  of  the  capital  as  he 
had  been  driven  out  of  Belfast,  Cork  and  Wexford, 
they  were  not  spinning  phrases.  They  were  talking 
by  the  most  influential  of  all  books,  the  bank-book. 
They  threatened,  and  they  performed. 

The  sense  in  which  the  Dublin  struggle  was  strongly 
individual,  provoked  and  controlled  by  things  local 
and    not   universal,   will   appear    from    this    rough 

118 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

analysis.  But  we  have  to  note  further  that  it  came 
at  a  point  of  crisis  in  the  history  of  labour.  The 
critics  of  Parliamentarianism,  the  apostles  of  direct 
action,  of  economic  as  contrasted  with  political 
pressure,  found  in  the  fighting  spirit  of  the  Dublin 
worker  an  asset  and  an  opportunity  irresistible  to 
them.  The  issues  had  been  posed  in  such  terms 
that,  on  the  face  of  it,  the  most  conservative  Trade 
Unionist  had  no  choice  but  to  support  the  men. 
With  the  assurance  of  this  solid  support,  the  more 
extreme  spirits  were  free  to  play  with  fire.  The 
class-war  was  preached  in  whirling  superlatives. 
The  force  of  gutter-journalism,  on  both  sides,  could 
no  further  go.  It  was  a  humiliation  to  read  in  one 
column  the  noblest  appeal  to  justice  or  to  order,  and, 
in  the  next,  to  come  on  a  personal  irrelevant  foulness, 
as  of  a  well  wantonly  choked  with  garbage.  Nobody 
wants  to  be  a  prude  or  a  dandy  in  these  matters,  but 
the  mud  which  besmears  impartially  the  flinger  of  it, 
and  his  target,  is  not  a  contribution  to  human  pro- 
gress. A  dramatic  demonstration  was  given  of  the 
triumph  of  class  solidarity  over  racial,  religious  and 
even  geographical  division :  at  least  that  was  how 
the  affair  appeared  to  the  Syndicalist  "  rebel  chiefs." 
Behind  it  all  the  civic  organism,  within  which  the 
duel  had  been  joined,  displayed  every  symptom  of  a 
very  real  distress.  The  workers  fought  with  admir- 
able courage :  there  was  very  little  drinking  or 
violence  and  a  great  deal  of  idealism  and  soldierly 
sacrifice.  But  there  is  a  point  beyond  which  the  belt 
cannot  be  tightened.  The  English  labour  officials 
repudiated  what  they  regarded  as  the  reckless  and 
impossible  strategy  of  Mr.  Larkin,  and  cut  off  supplies. 
The  employers,  on  their  part,  carried  out  with 
resolution  and  success  their  programme  of  "  fighting 
to  a  finish."  They  rejected  with  open  contempt  all 
attempts  at  conciliatory  intervention  by  a  Citizens' 
Peace  Committee,  overturning  Lord  Mayors,  Privy 

119 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

Councillors,  Deans,  doctors  and  professors  like 
disregarded  ninepins.  They  glanced  at  Sir  George 
Askwith's  Dublin  Castle  Report,  and  pitched  it 
forthwith  in  the  fire.  In  these  circumstances  there 
could  be  only  one  issue.  We  are  left  with  an 
extremely  ambiguous  state  of  affairs.  The  dispute 
has  not  come  to  a  conclusion,  it  has  merely  stopped: 
no  settlement  has  been  formulated.  In  some  cases 
the  men  have  gone  back  with  no  questions  asked. 
In  the  building  trades  they  have  signed  the  obnoxious 
"document"  which  proscribes  the  Transport  Union. 
The  carpenters  have  had  served  on  them  a  requisition, 
which  so  far  has  been  refused,  to  introduce  into  their 
agreement  new  clauses  renouncing  the  "sympathetic 
strike,"  and  the  doctrine  of  "  tainted  goods."  There 
has  been  plenty  of  "victimization,"  and  plenty  of 
"  desertion."  Not  less  than  six  thousand  strikers  are 
estimated  to  be  still  drifting  about  unemployed.  The 
introduction  of  motor  lorries  in  large  numbers  during 
the  dispute  has  added  to  other  problems  that  of  the 
displacement  of  labour  by  machinery.  Not  a  single 
member  of  the  submerged  fourth  seems  to  be  any 
nearer  a  living,  or  as  it  is  now  currently  called,  an 
economic  wage.  The  Housing  Report  in  increasing 
knowledge  has  certainly  increased  sadness,  but,  in 
the  absence  of  Imperial  aid  such  as  has  been 
promised  to  local  authorities,  we  are  no  closer  to  a 
solution. 

At  the  first  blush  it  would  seem  as  if  the  masters 
had  won  all  along  the  line.  But  they  themselves 
are  not  quite  certain  what  it  is  that  they  have  won. 
People  ask,  like  the  mathematician  after  the  play: 
What  does  all  that  prove  ?  What  in  fact  does  it 
prove  ?  It  is  not  a  victory  over  Trade  Unionism, 
for  the  employers  formally  declared  that  they  were 
fighting  not  Trade  Unionism  but  Mr.  Larkin.  It  is 
not  a  failure  of  the  General  Strike,  or  even  of  the 
much  more  limited  sympathetic  strike  :  neither  was 

120 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

seriously  tried.  On  this  point  some  explanation  is 
needed.  The  sympathetic  strike,  as  understood  in 
England,  is  essentially  a  strike  declared  by  one 
Union  in  support  of  another.  In  Dublin  the  con- 
trolling feature  was  the  fact  that  the  Transport 
Union  was  not  a  specialized  trade  or  craft  body,  but 
a  sort  of  omnibus  or  hotch-potch  organization  into 
which  such  diverse  elements  as  biscuit-makers, 
tramway-men,  and  agricultural  labourers  were 
gathered.  It  might  have  been  founded  on  that 
classic  page  in  which  Mill  points  out  that  all 
economic  effort  is  reducible  to  the  moving  of  matter 
from  one  place  to  another.  Any  collective  action 
on  the  part  of  such  a  body  is  bound  to  hit  the  com- 
munity simultaneously  at  many  points.  The  blows 
are  more  numerous,  but  there  is  less  weight  behind 
them.  Nobody  supposes  that  things  in  Dublin 
have  swung  back  to  anything  like  stable  equilibrium. 
Mr.  Larkin  may^go  to  South  Africa,  but  he  will  not 
take  with  him  the  slums,  the  hunger,  or  the  hope- 
lessness of  outlook  that  are  the  true  organizers  of 
revolution.  If  there  is  peace  in  Dublin  it  is  the 
peace  of  industrial  anaemia,  not  that  of  a  healthy 
civilization. 

But  if  no  problem  has  been  solved  many  have 
been  posed  with  a  new  exigence.  They  are  either 
local  or  general,  and  again  they  are  either  mechani- 
cal and  secondary,  or  else  of  that  fundamental  kind 
outlined  earlier  in  this  paper.  The  whole  business 
future  of  the  Irish  capital  has  been  posed  as  a 
problem.  You  lack  the  key  to  it  until  you  under- 
stand that  Dublin  itself  is  grievously  under- 
developed, and  that  it  focusses  with  lamentable 
truth  the  arrested  development  of  the  nation  as  a 
whole.  The  change  to  a  new  economic  order  in  this 
regard  is,  for  most  of  us  in  Ireland,  bound  up  with 
the  change  to  a  new  political  order :  that,  however, 
is    not  a  discussion   immediately    proper    to  these 

121 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

pages.  As  for  more  general  considerations,  we 
may  well  style  mechanical  and  secondary  all  those 
relating  to  schemes  of  arbitration  and  conciliation. 
There  is  no  saving  virtue  in  "bringing  people 
together  "  as  the  phrase  goes :  the  prize-ring,  for 
instance,  brings  pugilists  together,  but  the  result  is 
not  conspicuously  peaceful.  Everything  depends 
on  the  philosophy  of  action  behind  the  lips  of  the 
negotiators  and  on  the  actual  facts  of  the  case.  In 
one  point  of  view  all  economic  inquiries  are  an 
unqualified  good,  namely,  as  sources  of  information. 
In  that  point  of  view  they  must  be  developed  and 
extended  until  each  half  of  the  world  knows  exactly 
how  the  other  half  lives.  Our  knowledge  on  the 
subject,  although  greatly  improved  of  late  years,  is 
still  inadequate  to  the  point  of  humiliation.  The 
Board  of  Trade  investigations  into  wages,  rents  and 
prices;  the  Income  Tax  and  Death  Duty  returns, 
the  economic  importance  of  which  is  certainly  not 
inferior  to  the  fiscal ;  the  Census  of  Production,  and 
a  whole  range  of  publications  that  will  come  to  mind, 
ought  to  be  conceived  not  as  casual  Blue  Books  but 
as  the  germ  of  a  new  literature.  The  Year  Books, 
among  which  one  may  signalize  particularly  the 
Year  Book  of  Social  Progress  and  the  Encyclopedia  of 
Industrialism,  both  of  which  seem  to  owe  their  extra- 
ordinary usefulness  to  the  inspiration  of  Professor 
Ashley;  the  work  of  Mr.  Chiozza  Money,  Professor 
Bowley,  Mr.  J.  A.  Hobson,  Professor  Chapman, 
Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald,  and  the  more  responsible 
Fabians  ;  all  the  publications  of  the  Catholic  Social 
Guild  and  especially  of  Monsignor  Parkinson — one 
mentions  only  random  examples — are  not  mere 
books,  but  the  lines  of  a  new  social  orientation. 
The  Oxford  volume  on  Property,  although  it  is  not 
much  more  than  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  water, 
and  Mr.  Cole's  brilliant  and  dangerous  World  of 
Labour  are  significant  recent  additions.     The  time 

122 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

has  come  for  the  State,  which  alone  commands  the 
authority  and  the  resources,  to  consolidate  the  results 
of  all  these  diverse  investigations  into  one  Manual 
of  Citizenship.  In  so  far  as  Courts  of  Conciliation 
which,  from  the  nature  of  things,  must  be  Courts  of 
Inquiry,  help  to  elicit  the  actual  facts  of  economic 
life  they  should  be  strongly  favoured. 

When  they  are  conceived  as  agencies  of  peace  we 
enter  a  new  area.  The  outstanding  problem  posed 
by  the  Dublin  employers  is  that  of  compulsory  arbi- 
tration, penally  enforceable  through  the  medium  of 
money  guarantees.  The  interest  of  this  proposal  can 
hardly  be  exaggerated.  It  challenges,  or  at  any 
rate,  appears  to  challenge,  the  present  position  of 
Trade  Unions  before  the  law,  and  this  is,  in  effect, 
to  challenge  their  whole  historical  achievement.  It 
dismisses  the  considered  report  of  the  Industrial 
Council,  which,  be  it  noted,  is  a  joint  and  not  a 
sectional  Board.  They  found  unanimously  (Cd. 
6952.  1913)  that  moral  obligation  and  mutual  con- 
sent afforded  a  much  stronger  guarantee  of  peace 
than  any  legal  penalty  or  prohibition.  But  what 
renders  the  proposal  even  more  interesting  is  the 
diminishing  disfavour  with  which  compulsory  arbi- 
tration of  some  kind  is  regarded  by  Parliamentary 
Socialists  like  Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald  and  Mr. 
Snowden.  Mr.  Crooks  has  long  been  known  as  an 
advocate  of  it,  and  he  has  been  roundly  condemned 
by  the  Trade  Union  Congress.  But  one  finds  Mr. 
Cole  declaring  that  the  Congress  may  very  likely 
accept  it,  if  another  and  less  repugnant  name  can  be 
devised.  And  in  Mr.  Macdonald's  last  book,  The 
Social  Unrest,  one  comes  upon  a  suggestive  passage : 

"  .  .  .  the  field  upon  which  organized  labour 
can  win  victories  is  being  so  narrowed  as  to  impose 
a  heavy  handicap  on  the  workmen.  Capital  is 
being  concentrated    for   industrial  purposes,  and 

123 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

federated  for  defensive  purposes  against  Labour 
combinations,  and  organized  Capital  left  to  deal 
with  organized  Labour  under  existing  conditions 
enters  a  contest  with  everything  in  its  favour. 
That  is  the  reason  why  Trade  Unionism  is  turning 
its  thoughts  more  and  more  towards  legislation, 
and  is  rinding  ideas  of  compulsory  arbitration 
more  and  more  consistent  with  that  new 
position." 

It  is  evident  enough  that  Mr.  Macdonald  wants 
his  State  to  keep  the  capitalist  in  order,  and  that 
the  Dublin  employers  want  their  State  to  keep  the 
Unions  in  order.  But  the  question  has  been  posed. 
The  close  federation  of  employers  was  visibly 
present ;  its  success  may  very  well  be  a  new  point 
of  departure. 

In  all  that  has  been  said  it  should  be  clearly 
understood  that  there  is  no  belittlement  of  the 
function  of  Conciliation  Boards.  In  an  atmosphere 
of  goodwill  they  may  be  very  valuable  aids  to  peace. 
The  fact  that  the  Irish  bishops  have  exercised  their 
immense  moral  influence  towards  the  establishment 
of  such  bodies  in  Ireland  is  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance. To  say  that  machinery  is  not,  of  its  own 
inherent  magic,  adequate  to  the  situation  is  very 
far  from  saying  that  it  is  not,  in  its  place,  valuable 
and  even  indispensable.  The  creation  of  it, 
especially  in  Dublin,  is  indeed  of  all  secondary 
tasks  before  us  the  most  urgent. 

But  it  is  our  social  philosophy,  and  the  practical 
policy  founded  on  it,  that  alone  can  rally  the  workers 
to  civilization.  The  strike  must  be  grasped  not 
only  as  a  disturbance,  and  an  act  of  war,  but  as  a 
monstrously  expensive  advertisement  of  the  present 
abject  condition  of  labour.  Until  we  have  made  up 
our  minds  to  change  that  condition  we  shall  only 
be  padding  round  in  a  verbal  prison.     Let  us  look 

124 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

at  things  in  the  simplest  possible  way.  The 
function  of  an  economic  system  is  to  feed,  clothe, 
and  shelter,  in  a  human  way,  its  human  units.  Since 
ours  does  not  accomplish  that,  we  must  so  amend  it 
that  it  shall  do  so.  There  is  no  vain  dream  of  an 
impossible  Utopia,  and  no  hope  of  banishing  that 
part  of  the  mass  of  destitution  which  is  due  to 
personal  malfeasance.  But  neither  should  there  be 
a  too  easy  acceptance  of  things  given.  The  business 
world  as  we  have  inherited  it  from  the  exploiters  of 
the  great  inventions,  and  their  economic  counsellors, 
was  not,  in  its  origins,  framed  on  any  high  ethical 
model :  we  may  come  some  day  to  look  back  on  it 
not  as  one  of  the  supreme  triumphs,  but  as  one  of 
the  strange  aberrations  of  the  human  spirit.  Such  is 
the  suggestion  of  writers  so  far  removed  from  Com- 
munism as  the  late  Arnold  Toynbee,  and  Mr.  Hilaire 
Belloc.  In  the  effort  to  transform  this  fabric,  we 
must  not  think  so  fantastically  well  of  human  nature 
as  to  suppose  that  logic  and  justice  will  suffice. 
There  may  be  need  from  time  to  time  for  the  minis- 
tration of  war:  it  may  be  taken  for  granted  that 
situations  will  develop  out  of  which  no  humaner  way 
will  appear  possible.  All  the  time  each  economic 
class  will  find  it  necessary  so  to  organize  its  strength 
as  to  exert  its  appropriate,  stabilizing  "  pull "  on  the 
process  of  distribution.  That  is  the  rationale  alike 
of  Consumer's  Leagues,  Co-operatives  of  all  kinds, 
Employers'  Federations,  and  Trade  Unions.  Equili- 
brium between  these  forces  is  not  to  be  maintained 
by  mere  slackness  and  resignation :  it  imposes  on 
the  community  a  strain  as  constant  as  the  muscular 
tension  of  a  wire-walking  acrobat.  Occasional 
disturbance  is,  unhappily,  lodged  as  a  menace  in  the 
very  principle  of  our  system.  While  human  beings 
continue  to  be  born  into  a  sub-human  existence, 
from  which  only  the  strongest  and  the  luckiest  can 
hope  to  escape,  our  civilization  is,  so  far  forth,  a 

125 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

contradiction  in  terms.  That  must  be  the  material 
foundation,  and  the  mind  of  the  worker  must  be  the 
moral  foundation  of  any  philosophy  of  peace.  If,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  living  wage  were  unattainable,  if, 
when  the  skeleton  went,  the  feast  had  to  go,  or  if,  on 
the  other,  the  worker  had  finally  chosen  revolution 
as  his  trade,  the  outlook  for  our  world  would  be 
hopeless.  But  although  things  are  bad,  they  are  not 
so  bad  as  that.  What  is  essential  is  that  the  conser- 
vative should  realize  that  there  must  be  a  great 
change,  and  that  the  extremist  should  realize  that 
the  change  can  only  be  gradual.  To  ignore  either 
condition  is  to  lose  hold  of  the  problem.  The 
transformation  cannot  be  catastrophic :  even  the 
theorists  of  Socialism  have  long  since  ceased  to  think 
in  economic  Jenas  or  Sedans.  In  too  many  parasitic 
or  casual  industries  the  immediate  choice  is  between 
bad  wages  and  no  wages.  To  enforce  forthwith  even 
a  moderate  standard  would  be  to  drive  out  all  the 
marginal  employers,  and  to  add  whole  new  regiments 
to  the  army  of  unemployment.  But  to  torture  these 
commonplaces  into  a  new  Iron  Law,  to  linger  on  the 
difficulties  and  to  deprecate  the  necessity  of  a  changed 
order,  is  to  have  already  declared  war  on  the  soul  of 
labour.  Forbid  me  to  hope  for  myself,  and  it  is  a 
hard  saying  but  not  intolerable :  widen  that  inter- 
diction until  you  exile  eternally  from  the  sun  my 
children,  and  my  children's  children,  and  you  make 
peace  nothing  better  than  the  drowse  of  poltroons. 
There  is  in  our  midnight  a  hidden  morrow;  if  we 
deliberately  commit  our  energies  to  the  task  we  can, 
year  by  year,  and  stage  by  stage,  remoralize  our 
society.  It  is  that  prospect,  and  not  its  actual  shape, 
that  will  rally  to  it  in  faith  and  action  the  working 
class.  They  are  realists,  and  if  they  see  such  a 
purpose  honestly  pursued,  we  need  have  no  fear  as  to 
the  flag  of  their  election.  We  must  also,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  be  more  discriminate  in  onr  alliances.    Divide 

126 


LABOUR  AND  CIVILIZATION 

et  impera  is  a  dangerous  maxim,  and  those  spokesmen 
of  orthodoxy  who  regard  it  as  good  tactics  to  exag- 
gerate every  difference  of  opinion  that  may  chance  to 
arise  in  the  labour  camp,  to  embroil  its  various  parties, 
and  to  include  them  all  in  one  impartial  condem- 
nation, are  conspicuously  ill-inspired.  Where  the 
cause  at  issue  is  personal  vanity  you  may  well,  as 
the  phrase  goes,  "play  off"  one  agitator  against 
another:  but  when  ultimate  human  needs  come  in 
question  any  such  effort  must  be  at  once  mean  and 
vain.  If  we  find  men,  whose  spiritual  orientation 
is  not  altogether  ours,  marching  in  the  same 
direction,  we  ought  to  march  with  them  to  the 
term  of  our  common  objective,  and  not  separate 
for  battle  until  that  term  has  been  reached.  Every 
voluntary  and  every  State  proposal  that  tends  to 
broaden  the  basis  of  property — co-operation,  co- 
partnership, prosperity  sharing,  manufacturing 
guilds,  taxation  of  unprotective  surpluses — ought 
to  be  welcomed  by  us.  But  in  the  end  it  is  person- 
ality that  counts.  If  we  are  to  be  saved  we  must 
help  in  the  saving.  The  great  Encyclicals  of 
Leo  XIII,  those  spacious  and  noble  utterances  of 
the  true  social  philosophy,  bring  all  our  effort  to 
its  inevitable  point. 

"  Every  one  should  put  his  hand  to  the  work 
which  falls  to  his  share,  and  that  at  once  and 
straightway,  lest  the  evil  which  is  already  so  great 
become  through  delay  absolutely  beyond  remedy. 
Those  who  rule  the  State  should  avail  themselves 
of  the  laws  and  institutions  of  the  country ; 
masters  and  wealthy  owners  must  be  mindful  of 
their  duty ;  the  poor,  whose  interests  are  at  stake, 
should  make  every  lawful  and  proper  effort ;  and 
since  religion  alone  ....  can  avail  to  destroy 
the  evil  at  its  root,  all  men  should  rest  persuaded 
that  the  main  thing  needful  is  to  return  to  real 

127 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

Christianity,  apart  from  which  all  the  plans  and 
devices  of  the  wisest  will  prove  of  little  avail.  .  .  . 
Never  cease  to  urge  upon  men  of  every  class,  upon 
the  highest  placed  as  well  as  the  lowly,  the  Gospel 
doctrines  of  Christian  life."  [Condition  of  the 
Working  Classes.] 


128 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF 
NATIONALISM1 

The  science  of  Economics  is  commonly  held  to  be 
lamentably  arid  and  dismal.  If  that  is  your  experi- 
ence of  it,  blame  the  economists.  For  the  slice  of 
life,  with  which  Economics  has  to  deal,  vibrates  and, 
so  to  say,  bleeds  with  human  actuality.  All  science, 
all  exploration,  all  history  in  its  material  factors, 
the  whole  epic  of  man's  effort  to  subdue  the  earth 
and  establish  himself  on  it,  fall  within  the  domain 
of  the  economist.  His  material  consists  of  the 
ordinary  man  in  the  ordinary  business  of  mundane 
life,  that,  namely,  of  getting  a  living.  This  means 
more  than  food,  clothes,  and  shelter.  The  highest 
activities  of  art  and  religion  can  function  only  under 
material  forms.  Churches  have  to  be  paid  for  as 
well  as  factories ;  you  can  no  more  get  a  bar  of 
Caruso  for  nothing  than  you  can  get  a  bar  of  soap 
for  nothing.  Economics,  moreover,  is  committed 
to  an  analysis  not  only  of  the  production,  but  also  of 
the  distribution  of  wealth.  In  other  words,  it  has 
to  face  formally  the  vast  and  dismaying  problem  of 
poverty.  In  the  accomplishment  of  these  tasks, 
moreover,  the  economist,  preoccupied  with  one  mode 
of  organization  among  mankind,  must  necessarily  con- 
sider the  influence  on  it  of  other  modes  devised  or 
evolved  for  other  ends.  Politics  imposes  itself  on 
him.  He  can  evade  the  political  aspect  of  his 
material  only  by  evading  reality. 

1  Part  of  a  paper  read  at   St.    Patrick's  College,   Maynooth, 
December  5,  1912. 

K  129 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 


It  is  to  a  special  hinterland  of  this  last  tract 
of  territory  that  I  wish  to  direct  your  minds  to- 
night. Our  inquiry  is  simple  enough,  and  begins, 
as  far  as  concerns  myself,  with  a  personal 
examination  of  conscience.  Does  the  title  National 
Economics  amount  to  a  contradiction  in  terms  ? 
If  it  does  not,  and  if  the  nation  holds  a  legiti- 
mate place  in  economc  life  and  thought,  is  it 
that  of  a  blessing  or  that  of  a  nuisance?  And  if 
it  is  beneficient  can  we  formulate  an  economic  ideal 
fitted  to  express  the  self-realization  of  a  nation  which 
is  resolute  to  realize  itself? 

A  good  many  critics,  endowed  with  that  verbal 
deftness  so  characteristic  of  Irish  critics,  have  said  to 
me  :  "  You  have  a  Chair  of  National  Economics  in 
your  college.  Have  you  also  by  any  chance  a  Chair 
of  National  Trigonometry  or  National  Biology  ?  " 
The  gibe  does  not  go  home.  So  long  as  you  keep 
to  the  sphere  of  the  highly  abstract  sciences  any 
limiting  particularity  is  certainly  incongruous.  But 
as  you  pass  from  the  greyness  of  theory  to  the  golden- 
green  foliage  of  the  tree  of  life,  to  the  rich  and  endless 
differentiation  of  concrete  fact,  the  incongruity 
diminishes.  A  National  Mathematics  is  absurd;  a 
National  Biology  is  not  quite  so  absurd,  seeing  that 
every  country  has  its  own  peculiar  flora  and  fauna. 
When  you  come  to  a  National  Economics  the 
incongruity  has  wholly  disappeared.  Plainly  you  can 
constitute  for  each  nation  under  that  title  a  branch 
of  Descriptive  Economics.  Plainly  since  one  nation 
is  at  one  stage  of  growth,  and  another  at  another, 
and  since  the  economy  of  each  is,  so  to  say,  steeped 
and  soaked  in  its  temperament  and  history,  your 
corpus  of  fact  will  in  each  case  be  strongly 
individual.  Plainly  you  will  have  in  each  case  a 
separate  therapeutic.     But  I  suggest  to  you  that  the 

130 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

doctrine  of  Nationalism  in  Economics  goes  far  deeper 
than  that. 

Nationality  is  a  principle  of  organization.  You 
may  regard  it  as  ultimate  and  good,  or  as  transitorial 
and  bad,  and  there  is  no  narrowly  scientific  test  by 
which  either  view  can  be  dismissed.  But  in 
accordance  with  your  first  standpoint  your  whole 
outlook  is  determined.  Now,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  classical  or  English  school  of  Political  Economy 
did  appear  in  its  early  years  to  be  an  almost  irresis- 
tible solvent  of  Nationalism.  You  will  find  in 
Toynbee's  Industrial  Revolution  two  curiously  similar 
judgments  to  that  effect  left  on  record  by  two 
such  conflicting  contemporaries  as  Coleridge  and 
Napoleon.  The  reasons  are  in  no  way  mysterious. 
The  Classicists  were  all  for  freedom — free  trade,  free 
contract,  free  competition — and  Nationalism  appeared 
to  them  under  the  form  of  restrictions  on  freedom. 
Internal  tolls  were  disappearing:  why  should  not 
the  custom-house  disappear?  Self-contained  manor 
and  self-contained  town  had  been  fused  by  a  long 
historical  process  into  the  nation :  why  should  not 
the  nations  be  fused  into  a  world-economy  ?  The 
tides  seemed  to  be  setting  in  that  direction.  Capital 
was  becoming  at  once  more  powerful  and  more  fluid, 
and  there  is  in  capital  an  inherent  cosmopolitanism. 
Labour  moved  towards  internationalism  as  an 
essential  part  of  its  "gospel  of  deliverance."  What 
were  armies  and  navies  but  the  watch-dogs  of  the 
rich?  What  were  national  flags  and  songs  but  parts 
of  a  ritual  which  they  employed  to  intoxicate  and 
exploit  the  poor?  "The  proletariat,"  cried  out 
Marx  in  his  thunderous  manifesto,  "  has  no  father- 
land." The  whole  thought  of  that  period  is,  indeed, 
dyed  in  the  grain  with  cosmopolitanism.  And  then 
there  comes  that  sudden  upheaving  renaissance,  and 
Nationalism  is  there  as  a  colossal  fact.  The  simplest 
account  of  the  change  is  that  it  was  a  spontaneous 

131 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

outgush  from  the  deep  wells  of  human  nature,  and 
from  the  overlaid  but  unexhausted  springs  of  history. 
From  that  time  on  to  our  own  every  nation  sets 
deliberately  about  the  task  of  self-realization,  material 
and  intellectual. 

The  English  bias  towards  the  "classical"  economy 
was  readily  intelligible.  Dominating  the  world  she 
took  her  dominance  for  granted:  she  was  unconscious 
of  her  nationality  in  the  sense  in  which  an  entirely 
healthy  man  is  unconscious  of  his  digestion:  and  she 
devised  a  regime  under  which  every  other  nation 
should  be,  in  reference  to  her,  a  pupil  and  a  tributary. 
But  as  the  forces  of  growth  matured  and  expanded 
in  other  nations  they  declined  to  Peter-Pan  it  to 
England.  And  so  effective  was  their  refusal  that  if 
you  turn  to  a  contemporary  German  text-book  you 
will  find  the  three  periods  of  modern  economic 
thought  formally  classified  as  (i)  Mercantilism,  (2) 
Liberalism,  and  (3)  Nationalism. 

What  is  the  case  for  Nationalism  ?  Well,  if  you 
turn  to  the  leaders  of  the  revolt  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  such  as  List,  or  Henry  Carey,  the  Irish- 
American,  you  will  find  a  scientific  or  semi-scientific 
statement  of  it.  If  you  turn  to  a  modern  leader  of 
the  revolt  against  what  I  may  call  Juggernaut 
Imperialism,  such  as  Mr.  Chesterton,  you  will  find 
a  better  statement  in  terms  of  poetry  and  human 
nature.  .  .  .  You  will,  of  course,  bear  in  mind 
that  Mr.  Chesterton  is  not  sufficiently  dull  to  be 
authoritative.  Being  an  artist,  he  is  ever  labouring 
to  add  to  an  old  truth  the  radiance  of  a  new  beauty, 
which  compromises  him  with  the  grave  and  the 
learned.  .  .  .  Let  me  try  in  a  less  adequate  way 
to  suggest  in  outline  the  creed  of  Nationalism. 
Professor  Cannan,  in  his  recent  book,  The  Economic 
Outlook,  elaborates  an  antithesis  between  Socialism 
and  Nationalism.  And  in  that  form  the  case  for 
Nationalism   is  best  stated.     His  view  would  seem 

J32 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

to  be  not  that  Nationalism  is  visibly  dying,  but  that 
it  can  be  shown  to  be  obviously  incompatible  with 
Socialism,  and  that,  therefore,  presumably,  it  must 
die. 

The  stern,  inevitable  logic  of  this  conclusion 
escapes  me.  The  presence  of  the  steam  engine  on 
George  Stephenson's  pioneer  railway  was  incom- 
patible with  the  presence  of  the  cow,  but  it  was  not 
the  engine  that  perished  in  the  encounter.  The 
whole  tradition  of  Europe  is  for  Nationalism  and 
against  Socialism.  Give  us  deep-cutting  reforms  ; 
liberate  and  redeem  labour ;  bind  property  and 
service  in  a  bond  that  must  be  respected ;  assume 
for  the  nation  all  the  economic  functions  which  in 
the  hands  of  individuals  degenerate  into  waste  or 
tyranny ;  render  it  impossible  for  any  man  to 
become,  by  mere  dead  weight  of  money,  master  of 
his  fellows,  body  and  soul.  So  far  we  are  with  you. 
But  propose  to  ladle  us  all,  with  all  that  we  own 
and  are,  into  your  communistic  hotch-pot,  and, 
entrenched  behind  the  ancient  bulwarks  of  person- 
ality, family,  nationality,  we  repel  and  annihilate 
you  in  the  name  of  civilization.  If  too  much 
unearned  property  is  the  grave  of  freedom,  some 
earned  property,  with  the  seal  of  service  on  it,  is 
the  cradle  of  freedom.  Even  in  Ibsen  the  button- 
moulder  was  able  to  fling  back  Peer  Gynt  into  the 
melting-pot  only  because  Peer  had  remained  all  his 
life  a  mere  self-amorous  incoherence,  in  the  true 
sense,  a  nonentity.  But  the  nation  that  is  a  richly 
positive  entity  cannot  so  be  dissolved  and  dismissed. 
Destroy  Nationalism,  and  you  extinguish  the  sacri- 
ficial flames  about  which  the  greatest  nobleness  of 
the  world  has  gathered  in  abnegation.  You  shatter 
the  altar  vessels  in  which  the  precious  wine  of 
freedom  has  been  passed  from  lip  to  lip. 

"  Cosmopolitanism,"  says  Turgenev  in  Rudin,  "  is 
all  twaddle.    .    .    .    Even  the  ideal  face  must  have 

133 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

an  individual  expression."  This  humanity,  to  the 
worship  of  which  you  are  to  butcher  Nationalism, 
is  too  vast,  too  vague,  too  bloodless  an  abstraction. 
Our  arms  are  not  long  enough  to  fold  it  in  an 
embrace.  Ireland  I  feel  equal  to,  and  Dublin,  and 
that  windy  Atlantic  cliff,  straining  out  against  the 
ocean  and  the  sunset,  and  that  farmer  to  whom  I 
spoke  at  Tralee  fair,  and  that  publican  in  Tyrone, 
and  the  labourers,  spoiled  by  unemployment,  who 
come  to  me  at  my  house  nearly  every  day,  and  for 
whom  I  can  get  no  work.  But  as  for  the  world  as 
a  whole,  even  its  geography  is  too  large  for  my  head, 
to  say  nothing  of  its  problems,  and  its  emotions  are 
too  large  for  my  heart.  What  is  humanity  ?  You 
and  I  and  the  man  round  the  corner,  or  over  the  sea, 
are  humanity.  And  if  it  is  the  nature  of  us  all  to 
come  to  amplest  self-expression  by  living  our  lives 
here  and  now,  for  a  community  which  is  small 
enough  to  know  and  to  love,  then  by  "  transcending  " 
national  categories  you  do  not  enrich,  you  impover- 
ish, humanity. 

Nationalism,  indeed,  like  every  other  fine  faith, 
has  the  misfortune  to  be  judged  less  by  its  core  of 
dogma  than  by  its  shell  of  superstition.  Tarifnsm 
and  militarism  are  its  apes,  not  the  authentic  sons 
of  its  house.  The  parallel  to  which  appeal  has  been 
made  avails  here  also.  If  I  knock  you  down  in  the 
street,  or,  when  you  call  on  me,  slam  the  door  in 
your  face,  these  are  beyond  all  doubt  impressive 
proofs  of  the  fact  that  I  enjoy  an  existence  separate 
from  yours.  But  there  are  other  and  better  proofs, 
as,  for  instance,  to  buy  from  you,  to  learn  from  you, 
to  feed,  foster,  or  help  you.  There  are  better  ways 
of  putting  heads  together  than  banging  them 
together.  In  precisely  the  same  way  a  nation 
degrades  and  cancels  Nationalism  by  choosing  to 
identify  it  with  isolation  or  aggressiveness.  The 
first  blunder  is  at  war  with  the  conscience  of  all 

134 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

ages :  a  character  as  Goethe  says,  can  fashion  itself 
only  in  the  stream  of  the  world.  The  second  is 
certainly  at  war  with  the  conscience  of  this  age. 
To  receive  hospitably,  and  assimilate  deeply;  to 
toil,  to  think,  and  to  communicate  without  penury 
or  reserve — these  remain  the  marks  of  a  strong 
nation  as  of  a  strong  man.  Free  trade  in  ideas  as 
in  commodities  is  the  desired  regime  of  those  who 
have  attained  maturity.  But  it  is  a  strange  altruism 
which  bids  me  not  only  give  myself,  but  slay  myself, 
so  that  at  the  end  of  the  process  there  is  no  basis 
left  either  for  self-regarding  or  for  altruistic  action. 
I  must  own  myself  in  order  to  give  myself. 

Curiously  enough,  it  is  in  the  writings  of  contem- 
porary theorists  of  continental  Socialism  that  we 
find  the  most  eloquent  repudiation  of  Professor 
Cannan's  philosophy.  Practice  had  preceded  theory. 
Labour  once  thought — in  the  days  of  the  Communist 
Manifesto — that  its  destiny  centered  in  cosmopolitan- 
ism. On  that  basis  it  sought  to  construct  an  Inter- 
national, but  it  failed,  and  the  failure  led  to  a 
notable  transformation  of  Marxism.  To-day  you 
have  an  International  that  possesses  reality  because 
it  roots  in  Nationalism.  We  Nationalists  may 
appeal  to  the  authoritative  words  of  Professor 
Sombart  in  his  Socialism  and  the  Social  Movement : — 

"  Marx's  opinion,  '  The  working-classes  have  no 
fatherland,'  is  being  replaced  by  another,  '  If  that 
is  so,  let  us  give  them  one.'  .  .  .  The  view  is 
gaining  ground  among  Socialists — indeed  especi- 
ally among  them — that  all  civilization  has  its 
roots  in  nationality,  and  that  civilization  can 
reach  its  highest  development  only  on  the  basis 
of  nationality." 

He  goes  on  to  quote  glowing  and  splendid  passages 
from  David  and  Penestorfer,  to  one  of  which  we  may 
appeal : 

135 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

"  Socialism  and  national  idea  are  thus  not 
opposed  to  each  other;  they  rather  supplement 
each  other.  Every  attempt  to  weaken  the 
national  idea  is  an  attempt  to  lessen  the  precious 
possessions  of  mankind.  .  .  .  Socialism  wants 
to  organize,  and  not  disintegrate,  humanity.  But 
in  the  organisms  of  mankind,  not  individuals,  but 
nations,  are  the  tissues,  and  if  the  whole  organism 
is  to  remain  wholly  healthy,  it  is  necessary  for  the 
tissues  to  be  healthy." 

As  for  your  capitalist  who,  in  those  days,  was  a 
cosmopolitan,  he  is  now  in  every  country  a  jingo. 
Herr  Goldenberg  is  no  sooner  settled  in  Park  Lane 
than  you  find  his  name  heading  the  list  of  subscrip- 
tions to  Lord  Roberts'  Conscription  League. 

The  general  significance  of  the  new  politics  is 
twofold.  It  substitutes  an  organic  for  the  old 
atomistic  conception  of  economic  life.  And  in 
establishing  the  nation  as  a  principle  of  organization 
it  establishes  it  also  as  a  principle  of  sacrifice,  and 
therein  provides  the  only  basis  of  Protection  that  is 
not  intellectually  disreputable. 


II 

Such  "  sentimentalities  "  will  strike  strangely  and 
even  harshly  on  the  ears  of  those  who  have  been 
bred  up  to  believe  that  Political  Economy  began 
with  Adam  Smith  and  ended  with  John  Stuart  Mill, 
and  that  between  1780  and  1850  the  laws  underlying 
the  business  life  of  mankind  were  defined,  once  and 
for  all,  in  immutable  formulas.  The  line  of  thought 
suggested  by  them  is  very  ill  represented  in  English 
text-books.  There  is  a  reason  for  the  lacuna,  as  for 
most  things,  and  it  lies  on  the  surface.  If  you  want 
a  full  appreciation  of  the  significance  of  health  you 

136 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

must  go  not  to  the  athlete's  gymnasium,  but  to  the 
hospital  ward.  If  you  want  an  appreciation  of  the 
value  of  national  freedom  and  unity,  you  must  go, 
not  to  the  one  nation  which  entered  the  Steam  Age 
with  these  foundations  of  greatness  deeply  estab- 
lished, but  to  one  of  those  which,  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  had  to  work  out  their  salvation, 
political  and  economic,  through  blood  and  tears. 
During  the  period  of  crystallization  of  the  Classical 
Economy  the  industrial  hegemony  of  Great  Britain 
was  absolute.  Her  supremacy  in  coal,  in  iron, 
in  shipping,  in  machinery,  in  the  technique  of 
manufacture  was  unchallenged.  On  this  basis  the 
great  theorists,  like  Ricardo,  implicitly,  if  not 
deliberately,  proceeded.  The  system  which  they 
evolved  was  at  once  too  English  in  matter,  too 
abstract  in  method,  and  too  dogmatic  in  tone. 
Protests  against  its  exclusiveness,  its  insularity, 
could  be  multiplied  from  the  pages  of  Continental 
economics.  Thus  Adolph  Wagner,  the  great  Austrian 
master,  summarizing  Roscher,  a  precursor,  in  his 
Foundations,  writes : — 

"They  (the  English  school)  have  a  tendency  to 
rely  solely  on  abstract  deduction,  and  to  exaggerate 
its  importance  .  .  .  . ;  in  theory,  but  especially  in 
practice,  they  isolate  economic  phenomena  too 
radically  from  the  other  social  phenomena  with 
which  they  are  intimately  associated;  they  assign 
to  economic  phenomena  and  institutions,  and  to 
their  solutions  of  economic  questions,  a  character 
too  absolute,  instead  of  assigning  only  that  relative 
and  historical  character  which  is  proper  to  all  the 
facts  of  history;  their  verdict  on  Free  Trade,  and 
its  results,  is  in  many  respects  erroneous,  and  a 
great  deal  too  optimistic;  they  efface  the  State  too 
completely,  and  misunderstand  its  role  as  regulator 
of  the  national  economy." 

137 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

This  judgment,  which  is  not  precisely  a  con- 
demnation of  scientific  principles,  but  rather  a 
methodological  admonition,  may  now  be  said  to  be 
universally  accepted.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
one  of  the  first,  and  most  influential,  writers  to 
propagate  it  in  English  was  John  Kells  Ingram. 
Still  more  interesting  is  it  to  note  the  essential 
identity  of  the  human  reality  behind  it  with  that 
behind  ''Who  Fears  to  Speak  of  '98?"  The  red  fire 
of  passion  has  been  transmuted  into  the  illumination 
of  science,  but  here,  as  always,  Ingram  voices  the 
revolt  of  the  small  nations  against  the  Czarism, 
scientific  and  political,  of  the  great.  The  reaction 
in  Economics  is  most  adequately  represented  by  the 
German  Historical  School.  Of  its  leaders,  from  List 
and  Roscher  to  Schmoller  and  Wagner,  it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  every  nerve  and  fibre  of  their 
science  quivers  with  Nationalism.  The  simplest 
account  of  German  history  during  the  second  gener- 
ation of  the  nineteenth  century  is  that  it  was  the 
adolescence  of  a  giant.  It  is  significant  of  the  giant's 
future  that,  during  that  period,  he  finds  it  most 
natural  to  call  the  study  of  business  life  not  "Political 
Economy  "  or  merely  "  Economics,"  but  "  National 
Economics,"  Nationaloekonomik.  From  the  purely 
scientific  point  of  view  the  reaction  was,  undoubtedly, 
carried  too  far.  If  it  was  the  fashion  of  the  Classical 
School  to  dogmatize  about  everything,  from  a 
minimum  of  experience,  it  became  that  of  the 
Historical  School  to  accumulate  all  the  experience 
of  all  time,  and  then  to  decline  to  dogmatize  about 
anything.  The  one  sect  burned  incense,  and  very 
often  offered  up  human  sacrifice,  on  the  altar  of 
inexorable  laws.  The  other  did,  indeed,  question 
from  time  to  time  the  propriety  of  certain  details  of 
the  ritual,  but  their  dissent  went  very  much  deeper. 
They  said  simply:  There  are  no  such  laws.  You 
are  worshipping  the  non-existent.     But  as  spokes- 

138 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

men  of  real  life  against  the  phantasm  of  the  intellect, 
which  had  come  to  be  mistaken  for  real  life,  the 
historical  economists  were  wholly  in  the  right.  The 
fruitfulness  of  their  influences  is  best  witnessed  by 
a  writer  who  does  not  wholly  sympathize  with  it. 
Thus  Professor  Landry,  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
newer  generation  in  France,  observes  in  his  Manuel 
d'Economique  : — 

"  It  is  much  easier  now  to  distinguish  the 
Economics  of  one  nation  from  that  of  another 
than  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  This  results  in  part  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  interval  the  content  of  Economics  has  been 
greatly  enriched,  and,  in  consequence,  greatly- 
diversified.  But  it  is  also  to  be  explained  by  the 
development,  during  the  nineteenth  century,  of 
the  spirit  of  Nationalism  in,  at  all  events,  many 
parts  of  the  civilized  world.  For  more  than  a 
hundred  years  the  countries  in  question  have 
deliberate!)'  sought  to  differentiate  themselves  in 
the  region  of  scientific  research  from  their  neigh- 
bours. Indeed,  strange  and  deplorable  as  it  may 
seem,  there  are  even  countries  in  which  economic 
writers  deliberately  cover  with  contempt  the  pro- 
ductive economy  of  their  neighbours,  or  else 
refuse  to  consider  it  at  all." 

That  the  Historical  School  should  also  be,  under 
another  aspect,  the  National  School,  can  occasion 
no  surprise.  On  the  one  hand,  if  you  turn  to  history 
at  all  the  first  fact  that  impresses  itself  is  the  colossal 
fact  of  nationality :  on  the  other,  every  concrete 
nationality  is  in  origin,  form  and  tendency  an  his- 
torical product. 

So  much  for  what  we  may  style  the  rehabilitation 
of  the  national  idea.  I  may  seem  to  you  to  have 
laboured  it  too  much  with  something  of  a  Falstaffian 

139 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

parade  of  erudition  :  if  so,  the  explanation  is  obvious. 
When  you  come  to  mix  in  the  actual  life  of  our  con- 
temporary Ireland,  you  will  find  everybody  on  the 
one  side  concerned  about  national  self-realization, 
political  and  economic.  You  will  find  everybody  on 
the  other  parrotting  forth  the  perennial  nonsense 
that  the  Irish  question  is  not  political  but  purely 
economic.  You  will  turn  to  some  standard  text- 
book for  enlightenment — in  the  nature  of  things  it 
will  be  an  English  text-book — and  you  will  be  con- 
fused and  discouraged  to  find  principles,  which  you 
greatly  value,  either  cheapened  or  ignored.  I  have 
tried  to  suggest  to  you  that  there  is  an  historical 
explanation  for  all  this.  Continental  experience 
comes  much  closer  to  ours  than  does  English 
experience,  and  Continental  thought,  is,  as  a  result, 
a  much  truer  source  of  guidance.  To  offer  a  purely 
economic  solution  for  a  politico-economic  problem, 
such  as  ours,  is  futile,  and  even  absurd.  It  is  as  if 
a  doctor  were  to  tell  his  patient,  that  once  his  lungs 
are  brought  back  to  health,  it  does  not  matter 
whether  there  is  an  aneurism  in  his  heart  or  not. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  line  of  criticism  sug- 
gested is  fully  valid  only  as  against  the  popularizers, 
not  as  against  the  masters  of  the  English  school. 


Ill 

The  acceptance  of  the  national  as  against  the 
individual,  of  the  organic  as  against  the  atomistic, 
point  of  view,  transforms  nearly  every  economic 
problem.  Let  us  consider  one  or  two  of  them  very 
briefly,  and  first  of  all  that  of  external  trade  policy. 

I  have  already  described  what  may  be  called 
platform  Protectionism  as  intellectually  disreputable. 
The  orthodox  Free  Trader  has  no  difficulty  in 
riddling  it.     It  is  true  that,  theoretically  in  certain 

140 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

posited  conditions,  and  in  one  or  two  rare  instances 
in  practice,  a  tax  on  an  import  may  be  thrown  back 
on  to  the  foreign  producer.  But,  in  general,  the 
very  object  of  a  Protective  tariff  is  to  raise  prices, 
obtainable  by  the  home  producer,  and  payable  by 
the  home  consumer,  in  the  home  market.  If  that 
object  is  not  attained  the  tariff  affords  no  "  Pro- 
tection." In  the  long  run  the  increase  of  prices 
may,  indeed,  lead  to  the  exploitation  of  native 
resources,  hitherto  untapped,  and  prices  may 
gradually  sink  to  their  former  level.  But,  for  the 
time  being,  a  tribute  is,  and  must  be,  levied  on  the 
consumer.  How,  then,  are  we  to  describe  except  as 
impostors  the  Protectionists  who  run  gaily  about  the 
country  with  their  big  and  their  little  loaves,  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  paraphernalia,  explaining  that  they 
are  going  to  make  everybody  richer  by  adding  a  tax 
to  the  price  of  everything  ?  So  far,  the  Manchester 
stalwart  is  certainly  entitled  to  the  verdict  as  against 
him  of  Birmingham.  But,  when  we  have  reached 
this  point,  the  controversy  is  so  far  from  being  at  an 
end  that  it  is  in  truth  only  beginning.  The  advocate 
of  taxed,  as  against  untaxed,  imports  retreats  to 
higher  ground,  or  rather  launches  his  charge  from 
it.  We  have  already  quoted  one  great  Irishman, 
Dr.  Ingram;  we  now  fall  back  on  another,  Professor 
Bastable,  both  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin  : — 

"To  understand  the  position  taken  up  by  the 
modern  opponents  of  Free  Trade  (writes  Professor 
Bastable  in  his  Commerce  of  Nations),  it  is,  above 
all,  essential  to  recognize  that  the  key-note  of  their 
system  is  nationality.  .  .  .  The  claims  of  the  nation 
as  a  whole  are  accentuated,  and  regarded  as  far 
more  important  than  those  of  the  individual,  or  the 
world  at  large." 

The  nation  has  a  continuity  of  existence  to  which 
141 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

none  of  its  children  can  pretend.  It  has  been  from 
of  old ;  it  will  still  be  long  after  the  dust  of  this 
generation  has  been  blown  about  the  barren  plains, 
or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills.  Given  such  an 
organism,  so  extended  in  space  and  time,  it  is 
reasonable  to  sacrifice  the  welfare  of  a  part  of  it  to 
that  of  the  whole,  and  to  sacrifice  its  own  present  to 
its  future.  The  nation  is  held  to  be  entitled  to  require 
from  each  of  its  citizens,  even  in  time  of  peace,  tax- 
contributions  which  will  be  spent  on  great  public 
objects  in  which  assuredly  he  has  no  bread-and-butter 
interest ;  in  time  of  war,  it  will  exact  from  him  his 
property,  his  service  in  arms,  and  finally  his  blood. 
The  nation  does  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but,  if  its 
bread  fails,  the  special  type  of  culture  of  which  it  is 
the  representative  must  perish.  Is  it  not  clear,  then, 
that  if  the  industrial  and  cultural  strength  of  a  people 
is  compromised  by  the  trend  of  its  trade,  the  govern- 
ment of  that  people  has  the  right  to  interfere,  to 
impose  minor  economic  sacrifices  on  this  or  that  class, 
for  the  behoof  of  the  community,  and  even  to  lay 
burdens  on  the  whole  community  for  the  benefit  of 
its  future  citizens  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  a  father 
will  work  hard,  and  live  sparely,  in  order  to  secure 
for  his  children  a  place  in  the  sun? 

Such  circumstances  may  be  held  to  exist  in  three 
typical  situations: — 

(i)  If  the  effect  of  foreign  importation  is  to 
confine,  or  depress,  to  low-grade  industries  a 
country  capable  of  high-grade  industries. 

(2)  If  a  country  is  known  to  possess  great 
industrial  possibilities  which  have,  nevertheless, 
been  over-laid  and  annulled  by  the  disastrous 
accidents  of  history,  and  by  the  inertia  which  has 
thus  been  engendered. 

(3)  If  the  development  of  a  country  has  been 
one-sided — a  predominance,  let  us  say,  of  manu- 

142 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

facture  over  agriculture — so  as  to  leave  it  dependent 
on  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  its  food-supply,  and  so 
to  increase  enormously  the  perils  of  war. 

In  such  instances  it  may  be  argued  that  the  levy 
imposed  on  the  consumer  by  a  customs  tariff  is 
analogous  to  public  expenditure  on  education,  or  on 
defence.  I  am  not — let  me  observe — making  out  a 
case  for  Protection,  but  merely  indicating  a  plane 
upon  which  there  may  be  made  out  a  case  which, 
although  it  may  be  fallacious,  is  certainly  very  far 
from  being  a  mere  imposture.  You  will  notice  that 
the  central  reality  from  which  all  these  arguments, 
economic  and  non-economic,  radiate,  the  dogma 
which  lends  them  their  whole  value  and  vitality,  is 
that  of  sacrifice,  temporary  or  permanent,  in  the 
name  of  Nationalism. 

It  would  be  misleading  not  to  add  that,  on  the 
same  plane  and  in  terms  of  the  same  creed,  a  policy 
of  Free  Trade,  not  merely  for  the  England,  but  for 
the  Ireland  of  1913,  may  be  vindicated.  Here,  again, 
the  national  interest,  and  not  the  interest  of  this  or 
that  individual,  is  paramount.     The  reply  runs: — 

(1)  Protective  duties,  being  a  mode  of  indirect 
taxation,  oppress  the  poor,  to  the  advantage  of 
the  rich,  and  so  poison  the  wells  of  national 
renewal. 

(2)  They  do  not  evoke  efficiency,  but  merely 
shelter  and  stereotype  inefficiency. 

(3)  They  lead  to  profound  corruption  of  the 
national  political  life. 

(4)  Ifwe  are  to  subsidize  experimental  industries, 
let  it  be  done  openly  through  the  medium  of 
bounties  or  grants  definitely  assigned  to  the  pro- 
moters of  such  enterprises  to  enable  them  to  train 
labour. 

143 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

I  am  myself  a  Free  Trader,  varying  from  the 
orthodox,  United  Kingdom  type,  however,  in  laying 
strong  emphasis  on  this  last  rubric.  That  this  is 
my  view  is  not  a  matter  of  much  importance.  But 
it  is  a  matter  of  considerable  importance  that  it 
was  the  view  of  John  Stuart  Mill.  It  may,  or  may 
not,  be  known  to  those  who  are  so  fond  of  his 
"infant  industries"  exception,  but  it  is  a  fact  that 
he  withdrew  from  the  position  taken  up  in  that 
passage.  Actual  observation  of  the  pernicious  effects 
on  public  life  of  tariff  experiments  in  the  Australian 
colonies,  and  in  America,  led  to  that  withdrawal : — 

"  I  am  now  (he  writes,  in  1868)  much  shaken  in 
the  opinion,  which  has  so  often  been  quoted  for 
purposes  which  it  did  not  warrant;  and  I  am 
disposed  to  think  that  when  it  is  advisable,  as  it 
may  sometimes  be,  to  subsidize  a  new  industry  in 
its  commencement,  this  had  better  be  done  by  a 
direct  annual  grant,  which  is  far  less  likely  to  be 
continued  after  the  conditions  which  alone  justified 
it  have  ceased  to  exist." 

So  much  for  external  trade  policy.  Let  us  now 
turn  to  certain  matters  of  internal  development, 
bearing  in  mind  always  that  we  are  not  attempting 
to  examine  them  fully  on  their  merits,  but  only  to 
construe  them  in  terms  of  Economic  Nationalism. 
The  struggle  in  Ireland  between  pasture  and  tillage 
and  the  future  of  our  railway  system  will  serve  as 
examples. 

Nothing  has  so  much  compromised  economic 
science  in  this  country  as  the  fact  that  "  the 
Economists"  were  supposed  to  have  approved  of 
all  the  clearances  and  consolidations  which  came 
from  1820  on,  and  to  have  greeted  the  cattle-jobbing 
grazier  with  a  psean  of  applause  as  the  first  true 
specimen   of    the    homo  ceconomicus  vouchsafed    to 

144 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

Ireland.  In  Sir  Samuel  Ferguson's  remarkable 
poem,  "  Inheritor  and  Economist,"  the  reader  will 
find  them  denounced  with  extraordinary  vehemence 
on  these  and  other  scores.  And  the  pity  is  that 
although  very  ill-founded  as  affecting  a  great  Liberal 
like  Mill,  they  were  very  well-founded  as  affecting 
the  journalistic  popularizers.  When  The  Times 
wrote  that  in  Ireland  "  man  had  for  long  been  a 
nuisance,  and  population  a  drug  on  the  market," 
that  diagnosis  was  eminently  orthodox.  Ireland, 
to  the  popularizers,  was  an  entirely  simple  case  of 
over-population.  Since  any  one  part  of  the  earth 
was,  to  their  cosmopolitanism,  very  much  the  same 
as  any  other — England  and  her  chosen  people  always, 
of  course,  implicitly  excepted — and  since  it  was  the 
nature  of  labour  and  of  capital  to  flow  to  the  point 
of  maximum  productiveness,  the  emigration  of  men 
and  money  was  a  normal,  and  even  a  beneficent, 
phenomenon.  Indeed,  M'Culloch  went  very  near 
saying  that  the  drain  of  absentee  rents  was  a  positive 
advantage.  Moreover,  with  that  extravagant  optim- 
ism for  which  Wagner  rebukes  them,  he  and  his 
friends  never  wavered  in  their  faith  that  the  line 
of  maximum  personal  acquisitiveness  is  also  the  line 
of  maximum  public  benefit.  And  so,  beyond  doubt, 
the  gambler  in  cattle  entered  the  rural  economy 
of  Ireland,  panoplied  in  the  "  Laws  of  Political 
Economy."  Indeed,  so  long  as  we  keep  to  the 
individual  as  against  the  national,  to  the  atomistic 
as  against  the  organic  conception  of  economic  life, 
the  ranches  are  unassailable.  It  would  be  difficult 
to    cite    many    instances    in    which    the    quotient 

net  personal  profit  ,  1  i 

personal  effort  ls  not  as  larSe'  or  very  nearly  as  large, 
for  the  grass-farmer  as  it  would  be  for  the  holder 
of  an  equal  extent  of  land  devoted  to  mixed 
farming.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that,  in  the 
former    case,    effort    is    reduced    to    a    minimum, 

L  145 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

and  leisure  raised  to  a  maximum.  But  the  moment 
we  apply  the  touchstone  of  national  interest  the  whole 
aspect  of  the  problem  alters.  Mixed  farming  will 
give  an  indefinitely  larger  gross  output,  and  support 
a  correspondingly  larger  number  of  people.  Not  only 
will  it  enrich  the  nation  in  point  of  numbers,  but  it 
will,  by  the  greater  variety  and  difficulty  of  its 
technique,  improve  them  in  intellectual  and  moral 
quality. 

Appeal  to  the  gospel  of  Economic  Nationalism, 
and  the  controversy  is  closed:  reject  that  gospel,  fall 
back  on  what  are,  rather  ridiculously,  styled  "purely 
business  considerations,"  and  there  is  no  reason  why 
your  latifundia  should  not  increase  instead  of 
disappearing. 

The  railway  system  you  can  similarly  regard, 
either  as  a  profit-earning  enterprise  for  certain 
individuals,  or  as  a  fundamental  instrument  of 
national  development.  If  you  take  the  former  view, 
the  line  of  exploitation  of  these  railways  ought  to  be 
simply  that  of  maximum  dividends.  You  may  argue, 
if  you  like,  that  this  will  also  be  the  line  of  maximum 
public  advantage,  but,  unless  you  have  a  singular 
aptitude  for  rose-coloured  visions,  you  will  find  it 
hard  to  convince  even  yourself  of  the  truth  of  this 
proposition.  Take  the  other  point  of  view,  and  it 
becomes  your  duty  so  to  use  the  railways  as  to 
maximise  national  production.  You  are  entitled  to 
act  on  long-run  instead  of  short-run  calculations; 
to  lose  money,  for  the  time  being,  instead  of 
making  money;  to  undertake,  for  the  sake  of  the 
future,  large  expenditures  by  way  of  subsidy  and 
re-organization  which,  under  private  enterprise, 
would  be  either  impossible  or  else  a  fraud  on  your 
shareholders. 

These  illustrations  might  be  almost  indefinitely 
multiplied.  But  this  paper  has  already  run  to 
inordinate    length,    and    I    must    close    it,    leaving 

146 


THE  ECONOMICS  OF  NATIONALISM 

unanswered  my  own  question  as  to  the  economic 
ideal  which  Ireland  ought  to  set  before  herself. 
That  must  stand  over  for  some  other  occasion.  Had 
there  been  time  to  consider  it,  much  of  our  discussion 
must  have  turned  on  the  country  town.  That,  and 
not  the  great  city,  is  the  germinal  cell  of  industrial 
expansion  in  Ireland.  In  function  as  in  name  it  is 
capable  of  effecting  a  synthesis  of  our  two  great 
interests,  falsely  supposed  to  be  irreconcilable 
enemies.  The  country  town  must  manufacture  or 
perish.  As  capital  accumulates  in  the  hands  of  the 
new  farmers,  our  condition  of  progress  will  be 
realized.  As  soon  as  they  come  to  understand  that 
the  safest  investment  for  it  is  not  some  oil  or  rubber 
mirage  in  the  waste  of  the  earth  but  an  enterprise, 
associated  with  farming,  conducted  under  their  own 
eyes  and  their  own  control,  the  economy  of  Ireland 
will  be  transformed. 

That  is  a  mere  suggestion.  For  the  moment,  I 
must  be  content  with  having  unfolded  to  you  the 
outline  of  an  argument  which  re-establishes  Nation- 
alism, and  national  self-direction,  as  ranking  among 
the  human  First  Principles  of  material  prosperity. 
If  it  helps  you  to  join  up  the  dreams — as  yet 
unformulated — of  the  Irish  nation  with  the  intel- 
lectual tradition  of  Europe,  then  I  shall  not  have 
wasted  either  your  evening  or  my  own. 


147 


LABOUR  :    WAR   OR   PEACE 

Our  contemporary  world  is  modestly  conscious  of 
the  possession  of  many  qualities  the  excellence  or 
the  reality  of  which  it  would  be  idle  to  deny ;  we 
have  curiosity,  spaciousness  of  vision,  and  a  very 
notable  turn  for  the  exposition  of  depressing  truths. 
But  we  have  our  defects,  and  one  of  them  stands 
nakedly  out  like  a  headland  ;  we  may  not  be  more 
frightened  than  our  forerunners,  but  we  are  frightened 
on  a  larger  scale.  We  have  the  genius  of  panic. 
Every  difficulty,  caught  up  into  the  enlarging 
atmosphere  of  our  newspapers,  becomes  forthwith  a 
crisis,  every  trouble  a  tragedy,  every  political  blunder 
a  planned  betrayal  of  the  nation  and  posterity.  There 
is  not  a  school-child  in  the  land  but  has  already- 
survived  at  least  three  or  four  final  cataclysms,  and 
ends-of-all-things.  We  must  not  seem  to  suggest 
that  this  faculty  of  exaggeration  is  characteristically 
modern,  it  is  as  old  as  the  hills  and  human  nature. 
The  world  over,  and  at  all  periods,  the  worst  evil  to 
any  man  is  that  which  at  the  moment  has  him  in  its 
claws.  Last  year's  influenza  is  tolerable  in  com- 
parison with  this  year's  cold ;  a  boot,  which  pinches 
me  here  and  now,  nips  out  of  my  consciousness  all 
the  fantastic  tortures  of  China.  And  if  there  is  any 
sphere  in  which  even  a  slight  jolt  to  the  established 
order  may  naturally  and  almost  reasonably  set  us 
alarming  one  another  it  is  certainly  that  of  industry. 
The  economic  process  is  one  from  which  none  of  us 
can  stand  apart,  unless  we  chance  to  be  at  one  and 
the  same  time  rich  and  mad.  For  the  ninety  per 
cent,  of  us  for  whom  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  energy 
of  daily  life  is  committed  to  the  conquest  of  bread 

148 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

the  movements  of  economic  life  have  all  the  fascina- 
tion of  a  great  machine,  imperfectly  understood, 
indispensable,  and  full  of  menace.  Every  new 
development  seems  to  make  it  more  subtle  and,  by 
consequence,  more  vulnerable.  The  old  stable 
societies,  we  say  to  ourselves,  were  a  Temple  of 
Gaza,  they  might  crash  down  in  ruins,  but  at  least 
one  saw  the  vast  arms  of  Samson  knotted  about 
the  pillars  before  the  crash.  In  our  new  society  with 
its  amazing  network  of  international  trade,  finance, 
science,  and  anarchism,  there  need  be  no  such  great 
and  visible  intervention.  Let  somebody  only  push 
a  lever,  or  even  press  an  electric  button,  out  of 
season,  or,  still  worse,  decline  to  push  or  press  them 
and  the  whole  fabric  falls  to  pieces.  And  here,  we 
go  on,  you  have  the  only  people  who  know  how  to 
work  the  most  essential  parts  of  the  complication 
perpetually  grumbling,  with  perpetual  threats.  Is 
it  not  the  end  of  all  things,  or  something  very  like 
it  ?  With  what  assurance  can  we  keep  on  believing 
that  the  world  will  last  our  time  ?  In  the  improbable 
contingency  of  any  world  continuing  to  exist  it  will 
certainly  not  be  that  which  has  so  far  nourished  us, 
and  our  achievements.  It  will  be,  on  the  contrary, 
a  sort  of  blood-stained  Bedlam,  the  plans  of  which 
have  already  been  prepared  by  a  number  of  unpro- 
nounceable foreign,  and  unspeakable  home  agitators, 
hideously  devoted  to  the  hideous  cult  of  Syndicalism. 
This  picture  exaggerates  no  doubt,  but  not  greatly, 
the  exaggerations  of  our  modern  fear.  But  it  is  a 
recognizable  transcript  of  the  talk  of  the  railway 
train,  the  club  smoke-room,  and  the  golf-links,  that 
is  to  say  of  the  three  foci  of  middle-class  civilization. 
Such  an  attitude  of  mind  is,  in  many  respects,  a 
public  gain  of  extreme  importance.  It  has  at  least 
broken  up  the  monstrous  apathy  of  the  comfortable, 
and  delivered  them  from  the  sin  of  being  at  ease  in 
Zion.     It  may  save  them  from  that,  as  imaginative 

149 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

persons  are  sometimes  saved  from  drink  by  the  sight 
of  twisted,  sinister,  and  non-existent  snakes.  But 
such  terror  is  not  a  good  foundation  for  a  sound 
economic  system,  nor,  on  reflection,  will  it  bear  the 
scrutiny  of  recent  experience.  Transportation  and 
fuel  are  fundamental  necessities,  but  neither  the 
railwayman's  strike,  nor  the  miners'  strike,  nor,  for 
that  matter,  any  other  of  the  late  industrial  dis- 
turbances affords  any  justification  for  the  despair 
which  it  is  now  fashionable  to  affect.  The  world 
has  known,  and  lived  through,  much  dirtier  weather. 
No  man  of  prudent  temper  will  seek  to  underrate 
the  gravity  of  these  conflicts.  But  there  were  brave 
men  before  Achilles,  and  there  were  strikes  before 
those  strikes.  They  are  to  be  regarded  as  no  more 
than  incidents  in  the  epic  of  labour,  and  in  the  large 
epic  of  humanity  ;  they  spring  from  old  and  familiar 
causes ;  and  in  the  real  and  vital  forces,  which 
function  behind  them,  there  is  nothing  that  threatens 
a  new  dispensation.  There  is  a  test  at  hand  which 
hardly  anybody  ever  dreams  of  applying.  The 
reader  is  invited  to  forget,  for  the  moment,  what 
he  reads  about  the  dismal  procession  of  life,  and  to 
recall  what  he  sees,  and  his  own  role  as  a  marcher 
in  it.  If  he  encounters,  day  by  day,  red  ruin  and 
the  breaking  up  of  laws,  pale  riders  on  white  horses, 
and  apocalyptic  dawns,  no  more  is  to  be  said. 
He  belongs  to  the  "intellectual  minority,"  the 
"  remnant,"  and  those  of  us  who  do  not  may  wish 
him  joy  of  his  ticket  of  admission.  With  us  modern 
life  has  not  yet  dealt  so  harshly.  We  have  not  been 
menaced  in  our  morning  bath  by  any  Charlotte 
Corday  of  domestic  Syndicalism,  or  bidden  by  the 
porter  at  our  suburban  station  to  off  coat  and  shovel 
coal,  or  by  the  newsboy  to  plunge  into  the  brattle  of 
the  composing-room.  We  find  that  meat,  milk, 
clothes,  transportation,  and  even  an  accurate  report 
of  Professor  Schafer,  are  still  to  be  had  in  exchange 

150 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

for  the  very  different  services  which,  as  the  outcome 
of  a  series  of  accidents,  we  happen  to  be  at  present 
rendering  to  society.  Looking  out  we  discover  the 
way  of  the  world  to  be,  in  view  of  all  the  prophecies, 
scandalously  familiar.  People  in  general  are  observed 
to  be  still  enduring  the  ancient  discipline,  and 
exploiting  the  ancient  joys  of  life.  Dedicated  to 
plough,  loom,  and  engine  they  still  seem  to  keep  on 
grumbling  and  toiling  ;  making  little  of  much  and 
much  of  little  ;  homely,  loyal,  industrious,  reckless, 
impatient ;  interested  in  religion,  happiness,  the 
prospects  of  the  football  season  and  the  Insurance 
Act.  Some  of  them  even  reach  as  high  as  the 
crucial  Act  of  Hope  ;  they  marry  and  desire  children. 
So  much  is  necessary  by  way  of  striking  the  key 
in  which  any  useful  discussion  of  our  present  indus- 
trial inconveniences  must  proceed.  Mr.  Wells 
lately  announced  that  until  we  became  conscious 
that  everything  touching  labour  is  new — a  new 
atmosphere,  a  new  mood,  a  new  outlook — we  must 
abide  blind  and  impotent.  The  truth  is  that,  viewed 
in  another  aspect,  everything  is  as  old  as  the  edict 
that  joined  bread  with  the  sweat  of  a  man's  brow, 
and  that,  although  the  colour  of  the  counters  may 
change,  the  game  in  its  essentials  does  not  change. 
The  answer,  the  simple  and  the  sole  adequate  answer, 
to  Socialism,  to  Syndicalism,  to  every  perversion  is 
human  nature.  But  the  key  thus  set,  every  honest 
inquirer  will  admit  that  we  are  in  presence  of  a 
serious  situation,  not  at  all  novel,  and  not  so 
menacing  as  the  wolf-shouters  are  pleased  to  think, 
but,  for  all  that,  exacting  and  doubtful.  People  ask 
indignantly:  Why  is  Labour  discontented?  But 
how  could  it  be  anything  else?  The  condition  of  the 
workers  of  these  islands  is  not  such  as  either  to 
command  or  deserve  permanence.  Thirty  per  cent, 
of  them,  more  than  twelve  million  human  beings, 
count  themselves  fortunate  if  they  are  able  to  hold 

I5i 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

their  places  in  the  dim  borderland  where  destitution 
merges  into  mere  poverty.  They  are  constantly 
slipping  into  the  blacker  depths,  sometimes  to  recover 
their  hold,  sometimes  to  perish.  As  we  go  higher  in 
the  hierarchy  of  skill  and  opportunity,  things,  no 
doubt,  improve,  but  we  have  to  go  unexpectedly  and 
painfully  high  before  we  reach  the  plane  of  the 
genuine  living  wage.  And  once  on  that  plane,  or 
nearing  it,  a  new  force  comes  into  play.  We  are 
caught  in  the  sweep  of  the  law  of  economic  progress, 
the  simplest  statement  of  which  is  that,  having  put 
an  inch  between  himself  and  destitution,  a  man  will 
seek  to  put  an  ell.  The  sublimical  worker,  if  one 
may  so  call  him,  is  numbed  by  the  weight  on  him, 
without  hope  and  in  the  end  almost  without  feeling. 
Ease  the  pressure,  and  the  forces  of  growth  are 
released  in  his  soul.  He  advances  in  education  that 
is  to  say,  he  advances  at  once  in  sensitiveness,  in 
economic  appetite,  and  in  power  of  organization. 
Something  will  have  much,  and  much  will  have 
more.  In  his  vision  the  future,  whether  construed 
in  personal  or  in  social  terms,  must  be  progressively 
better  than  the  past.  Too  often  he  produces  his  line 
of  desire  to  infinity,  quits  altogether  the  sober  and 
fettered  earth,  and  loses  himself  in  the  millennial 
mirage  of  Socialism.  Now  it  is  submitted  that  you 
have  here,  in  all  essential  features,  the  story  of  what 
has  been  called  the  epic  of  labour.  The  strike,  now 
and  then  intensifies  some  episode  of  it  into  drama, 
but  the  pull  of  the  deep  under-currents  is  always  at 
work.  Those  of  us  who  believe  individualism  to  be 
the  ultimate  and  permanent  form  of  any  free  society, 
are  a  shade  too  fond  of  lecturing  labour.  There  is  no 
use  in  lecturing  labour,  we  had  better  understand  it. 
Let  us,  therefore,  say  frankly  that  the  condition  of 
our  poorest  is  a  poignant  and  horrible  fact.  It  does 
not  justify  the  enfeebling  sentimentality  or  the 
blood-hunger  of  what  a  speaker  at  the  Trade  Union 

152 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

Congress  described  the  other  day  as  the  "flapdoodle 
revolutionaries."  But  it  is  an  urgent  and  ever-present 
warning  to  us  that,  while  we  defend  and  conserve 
our  present  industrial  fabric  on  its  fundamental  lines, 
we  must  drastically  re-model  many  of  its  subsidiary 
features.  Moreover,  we  had  better  recognize  that  if 
the  desire  of  labour  to  make  its  future  better  than  its 
past  is  criminal,  then  we  are  all  tarred  with  the  same 
guilty  brush.  The  continuity  of  family  life,  and  wise 
instinct  which  sets  men  planting  acorns  so  that  their 
children  may  enjoy  the  matured  oak,  are  the  best 
economic  bulwarks  of  the  institution  of  private 
property.  If  anybody  is  to  have  the  inspiration  of 
this  hope  then  everybody  must  have  it.  With  greater 
justice  it  might  be  complained  that  the  rising 
standard  of  life  among  the  workers  tends  in  some 
respects,  in  the  direction  of  mere  waste  and  luxury. 
But  who  can  appear  in  court  sufficiently  clean- 
handed to  lodge  that  complaint?  If  the  "lower 
classes "  are  corrupted  it  is  the  "middle "  and  "upper  " 
classes  that  have  been  their  educators  in  corruption; 
it  does  not  lie  with  these  latter  to  preach  any  very 
honest  asceticism.  The  truth  is  that  if  you  look  at 
humanity  in  the  mass  you  will  find  it  not  much  worse 
and  not  much  better  than  its  familiar,  historical 
record.  Desire  still  keeps  it  on  the  march,  and 
desire  in  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  occasionally 
puffs  itself  out  into  an  intolerable  egotism  and  lust 
for  luxury.  But  if  you  examine  the  form  which  it 
takes  among  the  mass  of  industrial  labourers  in  our 
day,  you  will  find  it  to  be  modest  in  the  extreme. 
A  little  more  leisure,  a  little  more  comfort,  a  little 
more  security  of  life,  some  slight  treasure  of  hope  to 
bequeath  to  one's  children. 

So  much  for  what  may  be  taken  to  be  the  all  but 
universal  psvchology  of  labour  unrest.  Is  there  any 
ground  for  believing  that  recent  manifestations  have 
transformed  an  old  problem,  integrally  and  beyond 

153 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

recognition?  To  the  present  writer  it  seems  that 
there  is  none,  or,  at  most,  very  little,  and  that  very 
vague.  He  submits  the  following  analysis  of  the 
situation. 

The  late  strikes  were  not  serious  beyond  pre- 
cedent. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  involve  any  panic-stricken 
hypothesis  of  a  new  Anarchism  in  order  to  explain 
them ;  they  can  be  traced,  in  great  part,  to  certain 
objective  and,  so  to  say,  mechanical  conditions. 

The  "  New  Anarchism  "  is  neither  so  new  in  idea, 
nor  so  minatory  in  fact,  as  is  supposed.  Nevertheless, 
society  is  in  an  unstable  equilibrium,  and  the  time  is 
ripe  for  a  reconsideration  of  the  whole  wage-system, 
and  of  every  device  by  which  its  harshness  and 
variability  may  be  mitigated. 

The  first  of  these  statements  speaks  but  too  plainly 
for  itself.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  to  the 
Peasants'  Revolt,  or  the  tire  de  Lyon,  or  to  the  blind 
Samson  smashing  machines  and  getting  himself 
ridden  down  by  cavalry  at  Peterloo,  of  the  hangings 
and  transportations  of  the  strikers  of  the  eighteen- 
forties,  or  to  the  Irish  Land  War,  in  order  to  find 
parallels.  The  single  point  of  interest  in  such  an 
historical  retrospect  is  that  any  of  these  disturbances 
of  the  established  order  is  now  seen  to  have  been 
more  humane  and  tolerable  than  the  order  which  it 
disturbed.  But  in  modern  industry,  and  in  our  own 
time,  the  strike  has  been  rather  a  normal  feature 
than  a  deplorable  extravaganza.  For  the  decade 
1901-10  the  figures  for  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
show  an  annual  average  of  464  trade  disputes, 
affecting  221,059  workers,  and  involving  the  loss 
yearly  of  4,260,859  days.  If  we  extend  the  period, 
and  bring  in  France  (which,  it  is  well  to  remember, 
was  in  this  regard  not  the  corrupter  but  the  pupil 
of  England),  we  arrive  at  the  following  table  : 


154 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 
Working  Days  Lost  Through  Trade  Disputes 

United  Kingdom  France 

1891— 1895  14,032,298  1,497,768 

1896 — 190O  7,010,096  1,990,546 

I9OI— 1905  2,791,257  3,228,490 

I906 — 1908  5,947,000  4,907,000 

For  1911  the  United  Kingdom  statistics  record 
864  trade  disputes,  affecting  931,050  workers,  and 
involving  the  loss  of  10,247,100  working  days.  This 
is  a  lamentable  increase,  but  if  we  recover  per- 
spective by  putting  it  into  comparison  with  other 
great  strike  years,  it  does  not  seem  so  overwhelming  : 

Working  Days  Lost  Through  Trade  Disputes 
in  the  United  Kingdom 

1893  31,205,062 

1897  11,463,523 

1898  14,171,478 
1908  10,834,188 
191 1  10,247,100 

The  figures  for  the  first  six  months  of  1912  are, 
indeed,  dismaying.  In  that  period  no  fewer  than 
37,5oo,ooo  working  days  were  lost  through  trade 
disputes,  notably  that  of  March.  But  large  as  that 
number  is  it  does  not  constitute  a  phenomenon  of  a 
new  order.  Those  cited  serve  to  show  that  there 
are  but  too  many  melancholy  precedents  for  our 
unrest.  Nor  do  available  records  bear  out  what  we 
may  call  the  bound-to-be-beaten  argument  so  often 
addressed  to  strikers.  The  following  table  sum- 
marizes, by  percentages,  for  the  period  1900-1909. 
the  results  of  the  strikes  which  fook  place  in  five 
great  industrial  countries  in  Europe  : 

155 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 
1900-1909 

^ji  Victory  complete 


Defeat  of 


Strikes        Country  or  P«tial  of  Strikers 

strikers 

100  Belgium  34*89  65*11 

100  Germany  54'2i  45*79 

100  United  Kingdom  56*44  43*56 

100  France  64"  19  35*8i 

100  Italy  66*6o  33*4° 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  percentages 
are  calculated  in  terms  of  the  number  of  strikes,  and 
do  not  give  an  accurate  picture  of  the  magnitude  of 
the  interests  affected.  But  we  have  the  definite 
testimony  of  the  railway  leaders  that  their  strike 
"  paid,"  as  they  say,  "  a  substantial  dividend,"  and 
the  same  holds,  beyond  doubt,  of  the  miners.  The 
strike,  therefore,  would  appear  to  be  by  no  means 
the  abnormal  and  by  no  means  the  discredited 
manoeuvre  which  it  is,  in  some  quarters,  supposed 
to  be. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  late  employment  of  it  on  a 
large  scale  is  a  phenomenon  of  a  new  order,  because 
it  was  deliberately  motived  by  the  new  policy  of 
Syndicalism.  The  argument  apparently  is  that  if 
M.  Georges  Sorel  had  never  written  his  Reflections 
on  Violence,  the  miners  would  never  have  struck  for 
a  minimum  wage,  and  Mr.  Ben  Tillett  would  never 
have  had  occasion  to  pray  for  Lord  Devonport.  So 
stated,  the  attempt  to  ascribe — whether  by  way  of 
boastfulness  or  of  terror — all  contemporary  labour 
troubles  to  the  malign  impulse  of  Syndicalism  wears 
its  unreality  on  its  face.  There  is  no  need  to  soar 
to  any  such  abstract  and  refined  theory.  A  single, 
hard  concrete  fact  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  restive- 
ness  of  labour,  the  divergence,  namely,  between 
the  standard  of  money  wages  and  the  cost  of  living. 
To  raise  the  former  a  little  above  the  latter  is,  when 

156 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

all  is  said  and  done,  the  main  effort  of  organized 
labour,  and  we  are  accustomed  to  acclaim,  if  not 
the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century,  at  all  events 
the  Victorian  Age  as  having  been,  in  that  regard,  a 
period  of  growing  success.  The  year  1850  or  there- 
abouts had  come  to  be  regarded  as  the  turning  of 
the  tide.  Without  striking  into  a  maze  of  statistics 
we  may  summarize  the  general  significance  for  labour 
of  the  period  in  two  passages  from  two  great  econo- 
mists, Thorold  Rogers  writing  in  England  and 
Professor  Gide  in  France.  Having  characterized 
the  earlier  centuries  of  which  we  possess  records, 
Rogers  goes  on  : 

"  .  .  .  .in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  though  still  far  below  the  level  of  the 
fifteenth,  it  (the  condition  of  the  English  labourer) 
achieved  comparative  plenty.  Then  it  began  to 
sink  again,  and  the  workman  experienced  the 
direst  misery  during  the  great  continental  war. 
Latterly,  almost  within  our  own  memory  and 
knowledge,  it  has  experienced  a  slow  and  partial 
improvement,  the  causes  of  which  are  to  be  found 
in  the  liberation  of  industry  from  protective  laws, 
in  the  adoption  of  certain  principles  which 
restrained  employment  in  some  directions,  and 
most  of  all  in  the  concession  to  labourers  of  the 
right  so  long  denied  of  forming  labour  partner- 
ships." 

Rogers  had  in  mind  mainly  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Gide,  with  the  complete  picture 
of  it  before  him,  echoes  the  same  highly  ambiguous 
optimism.  Judging  by  present  experience,  he 
observes,  the  condition  of  the  workers  between  1800 
and  1830  was  "  probably  worse  than  at  any  previous 
period  in  their  history,  very  much  worse  than  that 
of  preceding  centuries."     It  was  a  "lugubrious  age." 

157 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

When   the  tide  turned  the  inflow  was   tardy  and 

penurious. 

"  If  wages  rose  enormously  during  the  last  three- 
quarters  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  must, 
nevertheless,  be  on  our  guard  against  the  illusion 
that  they  have  even  now  reached  a  high  level. 
What  the  movement  means  is  that  they  started 
from  a  very  low  level.  He  may  well  be  amazed 
at  the  fact  that  it  took  a  hundred  long  years  of 
conflict  and  advance  to  raise  the  wage  of  labour 
to  the  miserable  figure  at  which,  for  the  greater  of 
the  working  class,  it  now  stands."  x 

Thus  testified  Gide  in  1900.  In  the  intervening 
decade  things  have  not  bettered,  but  worsened.  The 
curve  of  prices  has  outdistanced  the  curve  of  wages. 
The  majority  of  economists  appear  to  be  agreed  that 
this  rise  in  prices,  and  especially  in  export  prices, 
is  due  to  the  enormous  increase  in  the  output  of  gold. 
A  similar  upward  jump  between  1854  and  1863  is  so 
to  be  explained.  This  upclimb  of  prices  is  held  to 
have  stimulated  production,  and  even  to  have 
begotten  a  boom.  But  it  has  reacted  sorely  on  labour. 
Professor  Ashley  estimates  that  a  worker  could  buy 
as  much  for  20s.  in  1896  as  he  could  buy  for  about 
24s.  in  1910.  Between  these  dates  the  price  of  food 
had  risen,  according  to  his  estimate,  by  at  least  19 
per  cent.,  according  to  that  of  Professor  Gide  by  25 
per  cent.  Wages  are  calculated  to  have  increased  in 
the  same  period  by  not  more  than  11  per  cent. 
These  figures  are,  of  course,  largely  conjectural,  no 
complete  inquiry  having  yet  been  made,  but  in  so  far 
as  they  are  our  daily  experience  must  convince  us 
that  they  err  on  the  side  of  optimism.  Such  cir- 
cumstances must  inevitably  produce  unrest.  The 
enormous   economic    pressure    indicated   has   come 

]  Institutions  de  Progres  Social.     New  Edition.     1912. 
158 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

most  heavily,  not  on  the  budget  which  at  all  times 
has  ample  reserves,  but  on  the  line-ball  budget  of 
the  wage-earner.  The  weakest  feels  it  worst.  The 
movement  in  prices  has  not  merely  checked  the 
rising  curve  of  working-class  prosperity,  but  seems  to 
have  actually  depressed  it  below  its  former  level.  In 
the  opinion  of  Professor  Ashley  it  has  deprived  labour 
"  of  all,  and  perhaps  more  than  all,"  that  it  had 
gained  in  the  way  of  higher  wages  in  the  last  decade 
and  a  half. 

This  harsh  and  embittering  experience  would  offer 
a  sufficient  explanation  of  more  than  the  present 
discontent.  That  the  discontent  in  question  springs 
from  defeat  in  the  old  struggle  for  food,  shelter  and 
clothes,  and  not  from  any  new  diabolism,  is  strikingly 
confirmed  by  Mr.  Vernon  Hartshorn,  the  ablest  of 
the  "revolutionaries."  "This  is  not  a  question," 
he  writes,  "of  Socialism  or  Syndicalism.  .  .  . 
The  worker  is  not  out  for  a  theory.  He  is  out  for 
something  more  tangible — bread." 

But  it  is  entirely  natural  that  in  such  an  atmos- 
phere novel  and  violent  doctrines  should  find  audience 
if  not  acceptance.  The  ear  of  hunger  is  ready  to 
listen  to  any  new  analysis  of  society,  any  new 
programme  or  campaign  that  announces  itself  in 
fervent  and  sweeping  formulas.  In  this  case  it  is 
invited  to  a  somewhat  ragged  version  of  the  words 
of  M.  Sorel,  and  the  deeds  of  M.  Pataud.  The 
poorness  of  the  lodgment  found  by  that  version  is 
obvious.  At  the  recent  Trade  Union  Congress  there 
was  to  have  been  a  full-dress  debate  on  Syndicalism. 
All  the  heavy  artillery  was  to  have  taken  the  field. 
But  as  it  turned  out  there  were  but  two  delegates, 
two  young  Welsh  miners,  who  attempted  to  defend 
the  new  creed,  and  neither  of  them  was  at  any 
particular  pains  to  define  it.  The  Congress  carried 
by  a  majority  so  large  as  to  constitute  an  all  but 
unanimous  decision,  an  anti-Syndicalist  resolution. 

159 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

What  the  precise  tenets  of  Syndicalism  are  it  is  far 
from  easy  to  say.  This  is  claimed  as  a  virtue,  for  it 
is  argued  that  vagueness  and  vitality  go  together. 
"  Why  should  you  be  expected,"  asks  Mr.  J.  H. 
Harley — in  what  we  may  call  a  tongue-in-the-cheek 
exposition  of  Sorel — "  to  know  the  site  of  every 
temple  erected  on  the  site  of  your  expected  New 
Jerusalem.  .  .  ,  Intellect  is  discursive  and  limitative; 
it  is  intuition  that  gives  us  the  rounded  or  perfect 
whole."  M.  Bergson  has  said  so,  and  the  mantle  of 
his  philosophy  is  deemed  sufficient  to  cover  a  whole 
mob  of  doctrines  that  would  otherwise  incur 
suspicion.  If  vagueness  is  characteristic  of  the  vital 
impulse  so  also  is  violence,  and  the  blinder  it  is  the 
better.  This  economic  Agnosticism  has  its  notable 
advantages,  but  it  may  help  also  to  explain  the 
Syndicalist  revolt  against  Parliamentary  government. 
Parliamentarianism  means  elections,  and  elections 
mean  definite  programmes.  The  election  address  of 
a  devotee  of  these  doctrines  would  afford  agreeable 
reading : 

"  You  ask  me,  comrade,  whether  I  am  in  favour 
of  this,  or  in  favour  of  that.  In  putting  such  a 
question  you  are  seeking  to  envelop  my  spontaneity 
in  the  limitative,  discursive,  and  generally  low- 
caste  categories  of  intellect.  Rise  to  the  plane  of 
intuition  on  which  alone  a  philosopher  can  consent 
to  dwell.  My  programme  is  this.  I  will  Intuit. 
I  will  creatively  evolve.  I  will  continually  and 
progressively  sprout  into  fresh  spontaneities.  .  .  ." 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  at  this  point  some  member 
of  the  audience  might  be  moved  to  intone  the 
popular  American  song:  "  I  don't  know  where  I'm 
going,  but  I'm  on  my  way."  Nobody  demands  a 
minute  and  accurately  starred  Baedeker  of  these 
Utopians.     The  lendemain  de  la  Revohdion  may  well 

1 60 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

be  rather  clouded  and  dim  of  prospect.  But  we  are 
certainly  entitled  to  demand  something  a  little 
more  or  less  definite.  Fortunately  many  of  the 
Syndicalists  have  so  far  forgotten  themselves  as  to  say 
what  they  mean.  They  offer  apparently  two  contri- 
butions, one  of  which  belongs  to  the  practical  and  the 
other  to  the  theoretical  order.  They  have  a  recipe  by 
which  labour  is  to  become  master  of  the  world,  and  a 
plan  on  which  the  world  is  to  be  reorganized  after  that 
mastery  has  been  achieved.  Let  us  take  this  latter 
first.  It  is  proposed  to  replace  the  wage-system,  bv 
hypothesis  overthrown,  by  a  network  of  productive 
groups  :  in  some  schemes  each  of  these  groups  is  to 
own  the  instruments  of  production  in  its  particular 
industry,  in  others  the  group  is  merely  to  control 
the  techinque  of  production.  In  this  second  plan  all 
industrial  ownership  is  concentrated  in  the  State, 
which  also  directs  the  whole  process  of  distribution. 
It  is  difficult  to  discern  any  impressive  novelty  in 
this  proposal.  One  form  of  it  is  merely  a  specializa- 
tion and  elaboration  of  socialism,  and  is  steeped  in 
all  the  injustices  and  impossibilities  of  that  system. 
The  other  is  a  mere  reproduction  of  the  dreams  of 
speculative  Anarchists  like  Kropotkin — the  free 
association  of  self-organized  economic  groups  dis- 
placing that  compulsory  association  which  we  call 
the  State — and  although  conserving  some  sort  of 
freedom  it  throws  to  the  winds  an  element  of 
co-equal  importance,  order.  Both  display,  on  exami- 
nation, the  lineaments  of  old  friends,  or  rather,  old 
enemies.  They  are  the  eternally  repelled,  eternally 
reappearing  standards  of  decivilization.  M.  Sorel 
and  his  fellow-theorists  have  indeed  issued  mani- 
festoes of  amazing  intellectual  power  and  fervour, 
veritable  lyrics  and  paeans,  so  did  Proudhon,  so  did 
Bakunin,  so  did  Stimer,  so  did  Nietzsche,  so,  in  his 
own  way,  did  Marx.  But  the  ancient  ways  of  human 
nature,  and  the   deep   laws    of  human  association, 

161  M 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

rejected  these  destroying  visions,  and  they  will  reject 
that  of  Syndicalism. 

In  innumerable  passages  the  new  literature  echoes, 
as  we  have  said,  the  long  hatred  of  Anarchist  for 
Socialist,  a  hatred  which  naturally  extends  itself  to 
politics  in  general.  But  the  tone  has  changed.  The 
Syndicalist  does  not  protest  so  much  against  what 
Whitman  calls  "  the  insolence  of  elected  persons," 
as  against  their  economic  incompetence.  M.  Sorel 
represents  the  contempt  of  the  craftsman  for  the 
mere  bureaucrat.  Syndicalism  stands,  even  etymo- 
logically,  for  the  men  trained  to  some  special  process, 
the  man  who  can  do  some  particular  thing,  and  who 
is  lull  of  pride  in  his  skill  and  his  work.  M.  Sorel, 
it  appears,  has  condemned  sabotage  in  express  and 
passionate  terms ;  to  him  it  is  a  sort  of  unpardon- 
able treachery  committed  by  a  man  against  what 
is  best  in  his  own  self,  as  if  Rodin  were,  in  a  temper, 
to  take  a  hammer  and  smash  his  Balzac.  With 
this  pride  of  the  craftsman  in  his  soul  Sorel  looks 
with  forecasting  eye  at  the  spectacle  of  a  committee 
of  Parliamentary  orators  set  to  run  a  steel  works, 
or  an  engine-shop,  or  a  woollen  factory.  He 
shudders,  and  the  comparative  popularity  of  his 
shudder  is  of  good  omen  for  the  future  of  labour. 
In  general  we  may  say  that,  while  the  Syndicalist 
Utopia  is  no  more  possible  or  desirable  than  its  fore- 
runners, the  Syndicalist  critique  has  many  valuable 
elements.  At  least  it  helps  to  lead  back  the  mind 
of  labour  from  "flapdoodle"  revolution  to  realism, 
service,  and  a  kind  of  tonic  pride. 

The  new  strategy  of  Syndicalism  is,  of  course, 
the  general  strike.  Is  it  so  new?  As  a  speculation 
it  lies  in  a  hundred  places  all  along  the  literature 
of  social  discontent.  Sir  Arthur  Clay  has  very 
aptly  recalled  a  crystalizing  phrase  of  Mirabeau's  : 
"  Le  peuple,  dont  les  seule  immobility  serait  formid- 
able."    Such    immobility    is    imagined    in    a    very 

162 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

concrete  form  in  a  very  well-known  sonnet  of  Sully 
Prudhomme  which  seems,  curiously  enough,  to  have 
been  overlooked : 

Le  laboureur  m'a  dit  en  songe  :  "  Fais  ton  pain, 

Je  ne  te  nourris  plus,  gratte  la  terre  et  seme," 

Le  tisserand  m'a  dit  :  "  Fais  tes  habits  toi-meme," 

Et  le  macon  m'a  dit  :   "  Prends  la  truelle  en  main," 

Et  seul,  abandonne  de  tout  le  genre  humain, 

Dont  je  trainais  partout  l'implacable  anatheme 

Quand  j'implorais  du  ciel  une  pitie  supreme, 

Je  trouvais  des  yeux,  doutant  si  l'anbe  etait  reelle, 

De  hardis  compagnons  sifflaient  sur  leur  echelle, 

Les  metiers  bourdonnaient,  less  champs  etaient  semes  : 

Je  connus  mon  bonheur,  et  qu'au  monde  ou  nous  sommes 

Nul  ne  peut  se  vauter  de  se  passer  des  hommes, 

Et  depuis  ce  jour-la  je  les  ai  tous  aimes. 

Sully  Prudhomme  had  his  dream,  and  turned  it 
to  excellent  purpose  ;  in  our  time  the  experience  has 
come  to  some  of  the  more  timid  in  the  blacker  habili- 
ments of  a  nightmare  and  has  had  no  better  result 
than  to  set  them  babbling  of  volleys  at  the  pit 
mouths,  and  cavalry  charges  in  the  factory  towns. 

The  strike  is  a  lamentably  old  and  familiar  weapon, 
and  the  passage  in  thought  from  a  single  strike  to 
the  conception  of  a  general  strike  is  not  very  difficult. 
When  we  come  to  a  passage  in  reality,  however, 
which  is  the  sole  point  of  interest,  the  case  is  very 
different.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  there  can  be 
anywhere  a  scaremonger  so  scared  as  to  believe 
that  the  dream  of  Sully  Prudhomme  has  any  relation 
to  the  actualities  of  1912.  Such  queer  people,  how- 
ever, do  apparently  exist ;  if  any  of  them  asks  why 
his  nightmare  is  to  be  so  dogmatically  dismissed, 
and  why  it  is  impossible,  we  can  only  answer  that 
men  are  not  built  that  way.  That  a  trade  union  not 
on  strike  should  sympathise  with  a  trade  union  on 
strike  is  very  natural,  and  in  such  cases  the  sympathy 
in  question  often  takes  the  shape  of  a  subsidy.  But 
the    "sympathetic    strike,"    the    mildest    prologue 

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THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

imaginable  to  a  general  strike,  has  failed  hope- 
lessly in  the  few  instances  in  which  it  was  tried,  as, 
for  example,  by  the  Irish  railway  men.  By  the 
terms  of  the  hypothesis  the  larger  conflict  must  be 
inaugurated  and  directed  by  the  trade  unions,  and 
these  bodies  would  not  inaugurate  if  they  could,  nor 
could  they  if  they  would.  And  for  very  good  reasons. 
The  unions,  powerful  though  they  are,  represent  but 
a  small  fraction  of  the  whole  mass  of  labour.  They 
are,  as  testified  by  the  late  Congress,  extremely  con- 
servative and  pacific :  their  benefit  sections,  in 
contrast  to  the  more  revolutionary  French  organiza- 
tions, are  of  enormous  importance,  and  the  Insurance 
Act  gives  them  a  greatly  increased  interest  in  having 
the  peace  kept.  But  there  is  a  deeper,  a  more 
nakedly  human  bulwark  of  security.  The  worker, 
like  everybody  else  in  the  community,  is,  in  the  first 
place,  a  consumer,  and  a  general  strike  means 
general  starvation.  Except  in  the  event  of  total  loss 
of  reason  men  will  not  saw  through  the  branch  on 
which  not  only  themselves  but  their  wives  and  families 
are  supported.  So  much  for  Syndicalism  in  its  main 
features.  It  might  almost  be  defined  as  trade  union- 
ism in  a  temper,  and  in  a  violent  hurry.  As  for  its 
alleged  revolt  against  politics  and  the  whole  working 
machinery  of  the  State,  aud  its  exclusive  reliance  on 
direct  action,  this  is  not  to  be  taken  very  seriously. 
No  man  with  a  heavy  weight  to  lift,  and  two  arms  to 
lift  it  with,  will  ever  be  persuaded  to  fit  himself  for 
his  task  by  deliberately  amputating  one  of  them. 
Nothing  is  commoner  than  to  find  a  Syndicalist  who, 
in  his  first  sentence,  has  abjured  the  State,  pro- 
ceeding, in  his  second,  to  demand  a  whole  code  of 
new  laws.  Just  as  many  a  German  votes  Socialist 
solely  in  order  to  goad  or  jog  on  the  more  conservative 
elements  on  the  path  of  social  policy,  so  a  few  young 
and  impatient  spirits  have  seized  on  Syndicalism  as 
a  cudgel  with  which  to  accelerate  the  pace  of  the 

164 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

Parliamentary  Labour  Party.  Time  will  probably 
take  its  revenge  on  more  than  one  of  them  by  sending 
them,  in  due  course,  into  Parliament. 

But  let  us  guard  against  lapsing  back  into  com- 
fortable apathy.  It  is  mere  rhetoric  to  say  that 
our  present  industrial  system  has  been  tried  and 
condemned,  but  its  flaws  and  distortions  have 
certainly  been  dramatically  unveiled.  Impressed  by 
the  appalling  waste  of  industrial  war  business  men 
are  everywhere  demanding  some  absolute  specific, 
and  guarantee  of  peace.  The  demand  is  Utopian, 
for  no  such  Economists'  Stone  is  to  be  found. 
Compulsory  arbitration  is  plainly  impracticable,  and 
if  we  inquire  into  the  justice  of  such  a  scheme  we 
cannot  but  be  surprised  to  discover  that  its  chief 
advocates  are  those  who,  as  against  the  trade  unions, 
warmly  defend  the  right  of  the  individual  labourer 
to  sell  or  to  refuse  to  sell  his  work  at  a  given  wage. 
Compulsory  arbitration  is  illusory,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  there  is  not  in  the  nation  force  sufficient 
to  drive  organized  labour  into  mine  or  factory  against 
its  will.  Organized  labour  refuses  vehemently,  and 
from  its  own  point  of  view  very  property,  to  surrender 
its  right  to  appeal  in  last  resort  to  the  strike,  but 
even  without  this  formal  refusal  any  attempt  at 
coercion  must  of  its  nature  be  futile.  The  idea 
of  submitting  the  whole  industrial  population  to 
military  discipline  and  martial  law,  and  of  hanging 
strikers  as  you  would  deserters,  is  preposterous.  But 
we  can  hope,  and  must  press  strongly  for  compulsory 
inquiry  into  the  facts  and  merits  of  the  dispute.  The 
whole  lesson  of  the  history  of  the  great  strikes  is 
that  it  is  public  opinion  which  in  the  end  decides 
the  result,  and  public  opinion  is  entitled  in  these 
complex  times  to  the  aid  of  some  skilled  official 
tribunal,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  necessarily 
partisan  newspapers,  in  its  attempt  to  discover  the 
real  truth  of  a  trade  dispute.     But  the  main  hope  in 

165 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

this  regard  lies  in  a  continuance  of  the  conservative 
attitude  of  the  trade  union  leaders.  They  have 
signified  again  and  again  their  reluctance  to  bring 
the  weapon  of  the  strike  into  play  except  in 
extremities.  It  involves  the  commission  on  a  large 
scale  of  the  one  unpardonable,  economic  sin,  that  of 
waste.  It  is  a  method  of  barbarism,  and,  rightly 
understood,  it  is  not  a  triumph  but  a  defeat  of  trade 
unionism.  It  is  highly  creditable  to  these  "paid 
agitators,"  as  they  are  sometimes  foolishly  called, 
that  they  should  stand  so  firmly  for  unpopular  sanities 
as  against  the  blood  and  thunder  insurgents  of  their 
own  army.  In  France  some  of  them  apparently  rise 
to  an  even  higher  plane  and  question  whether  "  so 
grave  a  lesion  to  the  fraternal  solidarity  of  labour" 
as  is  involved  in  the  idea  of  a  strike  is  in  strict  theory 
at  all  justifiable.  What  comes  to  be  universally 
perceived  is  that  the  commisariat  on  which  labour 
enters  these  wars  is  very  meagre,  and  that  the  sorest 
wounds  inflicted  by  a  striker  are  on  the  striker 
himself,  and  his  class.  All  this  is  to  say  in  other 
words  that  the  prospect  of  industrial  peace  is  bound 
up  not  with  the  suppression,  but  with  the  extension 
of  trade  unions.  We  may  echo  dogmatically  the 
maxim  of  Professor  Pigou  that  the  employer  who 
fights  against  recognition  is  always  wrong.  Nor  is 
there  either  wisdom  or  any  germ  of  success  in  the 
attempt  to  strangle  the  realities  of  trade  unionism 
with  laws  or  legal  decisions.  It  is  easy  to  elaborate 
a  fine-drawn  argument  showing  that  the  unions 
occupy  a  position  of  privilege,  and  even  tyranny. 
There  is  even  a  glimmer  of  truth  in  the  complaint. 
Unanimity  of  action  is  of  the  very  essence  of  their 
policy,  and  a  union  has  to  choose  between  absolute 
supremacy  in  its  own  particular  trade  or  ineffective- 
ness. The  rationale  of  what  might  otherwise  be 
questioned  stands  clearly  expressed  in  history  and 
experience.      It    cannot  be  better  put  than  in  the 

166 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

authoritative   words   of   Professor    R.   T.    Ely,    the 
distinguished  American  economist : 

"  Whatever  bad  traits  naturally  characterize 
labour  organizations  are  aggravated  so  long  as  they 
are  obliged  to  struggle  for  existence.  Whenever 
the  fact  of  their  right  to  exist  is  frankly  acknow- 
ledged, and  employers,  ceasing  to  persecute  them 
or  their  officials,  recognize  the  man  who  treats  in 
a  representative  capacity  for  the  sale  of  the 
commodity  labour  as  courteously  as  they  would 
an  agent  for  the  sale  of  corn  or  wheat;  finally, 
whenever  courts  cease  to  harrow  them  with  legal 
chicanery,  as  courts  long  did  in  England,  they  tend 
to  become  strong  and  conservative." 

When  we  come  to  consider  suggested  modifications 
of  the  wage-system  our  task  becomes  very  formidable. 
It  can  be  attempted  in  these  pages  only  in  a  very 
bald  and  summary  fashion.  All  the  proposed  schemes 
aim  at  altering  the  arrangement  which  at  present 
embattles  labour  and  capital  in  two  mutually  hostile 
camps.  In  all  of  them  the  shaping  idea  is  to  give 
the  industrial  worker  an  interest  in  the  prosperity 
of  the  capital  employed  in  his  industry,  and  they 
arrange  themselves  in  a  regular  hierarchy  in  pro- 
portion to  the  size  of  that  interest.  In  the  first 
type  we  have  the  wage-system  in  its  pure  form ;  in 
the  second,  profit-sharing,  we  have  that  system 
modified  by  giving  the  worker  a  share  in  the  profits, 
but  not  in  the  capital  or  the  control  of  the  enter- 
prise ;  in  the  third,  co-partnership,  the  worker  acquires 
in  addition  to  his  wages  a  share,  allocated  by  way 
of  annual  bonus,  either  in  the  capital  alone  or,  in 
the  more  advanced  stage,  in  both  capital  and  control ; 
and  the  final  term  of  the  process  is  reached  in  co- 
operative production,  in  which  capital  and  labour 
coalesce  in  the  same  body  of  workers.     The  under- 

167 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

lying  principle  of  all  these  reconstructions  is 
obviously  endowed  with  a  peculiar  fascination.  To 
get  rid  of  an  enemy,  or  rather  of  his  enmity,  by 
enlisting  him  for  service  under  your  own  colours  is 
an  attractive  prospect.  Generous  minds  have  con- 
stantly revolted  against  the  notion  of  one  man 
selling  himself  or  hiring  himself,  body  and  sonl,  as 
they  phrase  it,  to  another.  Certain  Catholic  writers, 
especially  in  Austria,  have  attempted  by  a  subtle 
but  unconvincing  analysis  to  represent  the  relation 
between  employer  and  employed,  not  as  contractual, 
but  as  associational.  But  are  these  schemes  work- 
able, and,  if  they  are,  do  they  afford  an  adequate 
specific  for  social  unrest?  Professor  Chapman  has, 
with  his  customary  wisdom,  been  lately  asking  us  to 
approach  such  solutions,  and  indeed  all  solutions  of 
a  great  difficulty,  in  an  absolutely  non-doctrinaire 
spirit.  We  must  look  at  them  in  a  realistic  and 
concrete  way,  studying  particular  facts  rather  than 
hastily  formulating  universal  laws. 

With  regard  to  all  these  modes  of  association  we 
have  considerable  experience  to  guide  us.  Profit- 
sharing  assumes  either  of  two  forms  ;  in  the  one  the 
employer  formally  contracts  to  divide,  annually  or 
bi-annually,  a  percentage  of  the  profits  of  the 
business  among  the  employees  ;  in  the  other  there  is 
no  formal  engagement,  but,  as  a  matter  of  practice, 
wages  are  supplemented  by  the  voluntary  grant  of 
bonuses.  This  latter  method  of  increasing  at  once 
the  efficiency  and  the  peacefulness  of  labour  is  very 
general,  especially  in  the  world  of  commerce,  but  its 
scope  is  obviously  very  limited.  It  does  not  create 
any  genuine  association  ;  it  comprises  the  integrity 
of  that  collective  bargaining  which  is  the  essence  of 
trade  unionism ;  and  it  has  a  tendency  to  sap  the 
independence  of  the  worker.  In  fact,  Professor 
Gide,  commenting  on  the  schedule  of  bonuses 
allowed  in  the  factory  of  Van  Marken  at  Delft — a 

168 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE  ? 

notable  case  in  point — observes  that  it  reduces  grown 
men  to  the  level  of  "  schoolboys  to  whom  marks  are 
allotted  for  good  conduct."  Sometimes  this  system 
is  superimposed  on  the  formal  engagement.  Of  the 
latter,  and  of  the  whole  device  in  general,  Mr.  D.  F. 
Selloss,  our  greatest  authority,  takes  a  view  far  from 
flattering.  Profit-sharing,  he  observes,  has  been  in 
operation  in  these  countries  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  but  it  has  rarely  succeeded,  and  in  a  great 
many  cases  has  had  to  be  abandoned.  Its  weak- 
nesses are  patent.  From  the  point  of  view  of  capital 
it  must  always  seem  absurd  that  labour  should  share 
in  the  profit  but  not  in  the  losses  of  an  enterprise. 
The  workers  on  their  part  complain  that  the  profits 
divided  among  them  have  first  to  be  earned  by  extra 
intensity  of  labour — they  are  a  sort  not  of  overtime 
but  of  over-toil  payment ;  if  an  enterprise  can  afford 
an  increased  dividend  to  labour  it  had  better  come 
in  the  form  of  a  rise  in  wages ;  and,  finally,  even  in 
favourable  circumstances  the  income  accruing  under 
the  head  of  profits  is  so  trivial  in  comparison  with 
that  accruing  under  the  head  of  wages  that  no  real 
synthesis  of  the  interests  of  labour  with  those  of 
capital  is  effected.  On  this  last  rock  we  have 
seen  many  schemes  go  to  pieces  in  recent  years. 
An  examination  of  any  striking  success  confirms  its 
importance.  In  the  case  of  the  Suez  Canal  Company, 
for  instance,  we  are  told  that  the  employees  are  so 
devoted  that  when  the  telegraph  board  announces 
an  increase  in  the  number  of  vessels  that  have  passed 
through  during  the  day  the  whole  staff  claps  hands. 
Enquiry  shows  that  the  profits  shared  by  this 
company  amount  to  no  less  than  30  to  40  per  cent, 
of  the  wages.  Co-partnership,  now  becomes  the 
fetish  of  some  writers,  promises  better,  but  unhappily, 
experience  does  not  uniformly  confirm  its  promises. 
Did  it  possess  the  almost  miraculous  virtues  ascribed 
to  it,  it  must    by  this   time  have  covered  with  its 

169 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

sheltering  branches  a  great  part  of  the  industrial 
world  ;  for  the  Fmnilistcre  of  Godin  at  Guise  dates 
back  almost   to  the    inauguration    of   British    Free 
Trade.     Successes   are    to    be    chronicled    in    that 
instance,  in  the  woollen  factory  of  Mr.  Cooke  Taylor 
at  Batley,  in    the    Cash   Register  establishment  at 
Dayton,  Ohio,  in  the  printing  firm  of  Van  Marken 
at    Delft,    and  in  the    London  gas  companies.     In 
this  last  instance  it  is  significant  to  note  that  the 
managements  found    it    necessary    to   compel    the 
workers  to   acquire   a   share   in  the  capital.     But, 
despite  the  brilliant  and  widely  celebrated  success 
of  these  experiments,  the  co-partnership   idea   has 
not   greatly   expanded ;    it    seems    neither   to   gain 
ground  nor  to  lose  it.     Co-operative  production  is 
in  no  better  case.     As  a  plan  of  organization  for  the 
whole  of  industry  it    amounts  substantially  to  the 
impossible  dream  of  the  Syndicalists-Socialists.     As 
a  type  among  the  other  types  of  enterprise  it  lies 
under  two   main    disadvantages,    the    difficulty    of 
obtaining  capital  and  that  of  maintaining  discipline. 
In  agriculture  it  undoubtedly  possesses  the  secret  of 
the  future,  but  there  it  becomes  a  phenomenon  of  a 
different    order.      In   manufacturing    industry   it    is 
apparently  able  to  hold  its  ground  only  when  it  rests 
on  a  basis  of  associations  of  consumers,  confines  the 
co-operative    formula   to  the    side   of  capital,    and 
employs  labour  under  the  discipline  of  the  present 
wage-system.     Its  one  notable  triumph  of  late,  the 
Glass- Workers'  Association  of  Albi,  turned  largely 
on    subsidies   and    preferences   granted,    mainly  on 
political  grounds,  by  public  bodies  and  "  Co-opera- 
tives  of  Consumption."      Other  experiments   have 
been    tried,  particularly  what    Mr.    Lever   of  Port 
Sunlight   calls    "  prosperity-sharing."     This    is   the 
programme  of  the   palace  factory  and   the  garden 
city.     In  every  instance  in  which  employers  have 
followed  Mr.  Lever's  plan  of  humanizing  the  con- 

170 


LABOUR: WAR  OR  PEACE? 

ditions  of  labour,  surrounding  their  workers  with 
comfort  and  even  a  hint  of  luxury,  they  have  been 
amply  repaid.  Advocates  have  also  appeared  in  the 
field  on  behalf  of  an  intermediate  plan  by  which 
not  the  individual  worker  but  the  trade  union  would 
acquire  considerable  blocks  of  the  capital  of  their 
industries.  Others  propound  a  scheme  under  which 
the  workers,  or  groups  of  them,  would  take  jobs  on 
piece-rates  from  the  employer,  and  apportion  among 
themselves  both  the  labour  and  the  remuneration. 

There  is  none  of  these  proposals  that  is  not  worthy 
of  consideration.  Any  one  of  them  may,  in  some 
particular  trade  in  some  particular  place,  be  the  best 
path  to  peace  and  development.  But  any  such 
association  seems  to  demand  exceptional  personality, 
and  an  exceptional  tradition.  Everything  indicates 
that  it  is  likely  to  appear  only  as  a  happy  accident, 
and  that  the  normal  type  of  enterprise  will  continue 
to  be  based  on  the  wage-system.  What  we  have  got 
to  realize,  to  absorb  into  our  social  philosophy,  to 
get  into  our  bones,  as  the  phrase  is,  is  that  the  wage- 
system  as  at  present  in  operation  is  profoundly 
unsatisfactory.  It  must  be  amended  if  it  is  to  endure. 
The  standard  of  wages  is,  in  general,  too  low ;  over 
a  great  area  it  is  so  low  as  to  shut  out  the  recipients 
of  it,  not  only  from  the  amenities  but  even  from  the 
necessaries  of  life.  This  undenied  fact  is  the  lion  in 
the  path.  The  worker  is  under  a  further  disad- 
vantage, which  has  manifested  itself  very  prominently 
in  his  recent  history;  he  makes  his  contract  of  service, 
not  in  terms  of  the  economic  realities  which  he  needs 
— food,  clothes  and  shelter — but  in  terms  of  an 
economic  symbol,  money.  If  the  fluctuations  of  the 
latter  are  unfavourable  to  him  he  finds  the  whole 
sense  of  his  agreement  gone,  while  the  latter  remains. 
If  he  disregards  that  he  is  in  danger  of  estranging 
public  opinion  by  what  is  represented  as  a  breach  of 
faith.     There   is  yet  another   characteristic   of  the 

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THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

personal  wage-history  of  the  wage-earner.  Unlike 
the  public  functionary,  or  the  mental  labourer  in 
general,  he  does  not  enjoy  an  income  which  rises 
steadily  if  slowly,  offering  automatic  provision  for  the 
responsibilities  of  marriage,  and  the  growing  disabili- 
ties of  age.  The  wage-earner  reaches  his  maximum 
early,  stays  there  during  maturity,  to  slip  lamentably 
down  as  his  hair  blanches.  Nothing  could  well  be 
more  pathetic  than  the  recorded  fact  that  in  some 
English  industrial  towns  the  unusual  consumption  of 
hair-d)Te  has  been  traced  not  to  feminine  coquetry, 
but  to  the  desperate  attempts  of  ageing  workers  to 
conceal  their  age.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that 
the  majority  of  them  have  had  to  support  their 
manhood  on  a  wage  which  made  thrift  not  only 
impossible  hut  almost  criminal.  To  what  measures 
are  we  to  look  for  amelioration  ?  The  first  essential 
is  a  change  of  mind;  there  must  be  a  deliberate 
adhesion,  not  a  mere  grudging  and  forced  assent,  to 
the  principle  that  the  level  of  real  wages  in  all  but 
all  industries,  but  especially  in  those  in  which  labour 
is  not  organized,  is  too  low  for  social  health  or 
stability,  and  that  it  must  rise.  The  divergence  of 
nominal  from  real  wages  is  mainly  a  matter  of 
terminology.  We  have  simply  got  to  recognize  that 
every  collective  agreement  fixing  the  price  of  labour 
is  controlled  by  a  rebus  sic  stentibus  proviso.  A  rise 
in  real  wages  is  the  substantial  end  to  be  attained, 
and  the  attainment  of  it  is  the  solution  of  the  social 
problem.  The  mode  of  attainment  most  widely  dis- 
cussed at  present  is  the  establishment,  by  law,  of  a 
minimum  wage  in  every  industry.  This  proposal 
has  encountered  many  criticisms,  the  most  surprising 
being  to  the  effect  that  it  is  revolutionary  and 
Socialistic.  The  truth  is  that  it  proposes  merely  to 
extend  to  unorganized  labour,  through  the  machinery 
of  the  State,  what  organized  labour  has  obtained 
through  trade  unionism.     And  so  far  is  this  scheme 

172 


LABOUR:  WAR  OR  PEACE? 

from  being  Socialistic,  that  on  the  Continent  it  is 
specially  identified  with  the  Catholic  School  of 
Economics,  although  it  must  be  said  that  so 
distinguished  a  theorist  as  Rombaud  prefers  a 
customary  to  a  statutory  wage.  Will  industry 
everywhere  be  able  to  bear  forthwith  a  minimum 
high  enough  to  constitute  a  genuine  living  wage  ? 
Mr.  Ramsay  MacDonald  has  a  short  way  of  dealing 
with  this  fundamental  difficulty.  If  any  industry  is 
not  able  to  do  so,  let  it  perish ;  it  is  a  mere  parasite, 
a  national  loss  rather  than  an  asset.  Such  a  dictum 
is  hopelessly  at  war  with  realities,  and  with  the 
realistic  temper  of  mind,  which  alone  can  achieve 
lasting  results.  There  are  literally  thousands  of 
instances  in  which  the  customary  wage  is,  for  the 
time  being,  less  than  a  genuine  living  wage;  in  which, 
for  the  time  being,  no  better  is  possible;  and  yet  the 
destruction  of  which  would  be  nothing  less  than 
insanity.  The  universal  establishment  of  a  human 
minimum  is,  indeed,  the  ideal  towards  which  we 
must  work.  But  we  must  come  to  it  by  a  steady 
process  of  amelioration,  not  by  a  sudden  stroke  of 
Utopianism.  Any  Minimun  Wage  Act  must  be 
indefinitely  flexible:  permitted  variations  from  place 
to  place,  and  perhaps  a  sliding-scale  arrangement 
must  enable  it  to  adjust  itself  to  the  varying 
actualities  to  which  it  is  applied.  So  framed,  it 
offers  itself,  if  not  as  a  panacea,  at  least  as  a 
promising  experiment.  As  for  the  other  peculiar 
difficulties  of  the  wage-earner's  life  (arising  from 
sickness,  unemployment  and  age),  the  State  has 
already  intervened.  And  we  may  take  it  for  granted 
that,  whatever  details  may  be  corrected  in  the  light 
of  experience,  the  area  of  social  legislation  is  bound 
not  to  contract,  but  to  widen. 

Such  more  or  less  mechanical  readjustments  must 
come,  but  unless  there  is  in  the  community  a  suffi- 
cient reserve  of  good-will  to  keep  the  wheels  oiled, 

J73 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

we  cannot  expect  them  to  function  very  smoothly. 
It  is  no  mere  rhetoric  that  appeals  for  a  change  of 
spirit.  We  have  already  chronicled  it  as  a  good 
omen  that  the  worker  is  beginning  to  recover  his 
pride  of  craftsmanship,  and  to  discover  that  to  bear 
burdens,  although  toilsome,  is  a  toil  of  honour.  He 
may  well  desire  that  a  similar  pride  in  tasks  accom- 
plished and  duties  loyally  fulfilled  should  find 
expression  among  the  wealthier  classes.  A  world 
in  which  everybody  proclaims  his  grievances  and 
forgets  his  obligations  must  necessarily  rock  with 
unrest.  We  have  all  got  to  accept  life  as  a  hard 
but  cleansing  discipline,  of  which  effort,  after  painful 
effort,  is  the  normal  texture,  and  pleasure  but  a  rare 
embroidery.  In  the  restoration  of  such  a  sane  social 
philosophy  it  is  often  announced  that  the  Church 
has  a  great  part  to  play.  To  me  it  seems  that  the 
sanctuary  and  the  laboratory  of  the  Church  is  the 
individual  conscience.  There  are  good  grounds  for 
adding  to  the  curriculum  of  ecclesiastical  colleges  a 
course  in  economics,  and  the  social  sciences  in 
general.  A  priest  with  spare  time  can  help  greatly 
towards  peace,  not  by  lecturing  his  people — as  a 
rule  with  more  fervour  than  insight — but  by  reason- 
ing out  with  them  in  quiet  conference  the  significance 
of  the  economic  conditions  among  which  their  lot  is 
cast.  On  that  line  much,  and  very  much,  can  be 
done.  But  any  attempt  to  formulate  in  the  name 
of  the  Church  a  rigorous  and  exclusive  social  pro- 
gramme, and  to  insist  that  that  is  sound  Catholic 
policy,  must,  of  its  nature,  be  futile  and  even  dangerous. 
It  is  indeed  part  of  the  mission  of  the  Church  to 
safeguard  those  ethical  truths  which  lie  at  the  basis 
of  all  society ;  but  when  it  comes  to  a  discussion  of 
the  technical  processes  of  society,  economic  and  poli- 
tical, every  man  must  effect  his  own  synthesis  of  prin- 
ciple and  technique,  and  he  must  be  free  to  follow  the 
light  of  his  own  conscience  and  his  ova  experience. 

x74 


THE  WORLD   OF  THE   BLIND 

War  has  long  been  accepted  as  our  best  aid  to  the 
teaching  of  geography :  blood  is  an  expensive  marking 
fluid  for  maps,  but  it  is  vivid  and  indelible.  Through 
its  virtue  alone  have  the  Egypts,  the  Tibets,  and  the 
Koreas  been  opened  to  general  vision.  And  it  would 
seem  as  if  a  similar  passage  through  calamity  to 
knowledge  will  fall  to  be  recorded  in  regard  to  that 
most  secret  province  of  all,  the  World  of  the  Blind. 
Mr.  Pearson,  a  great  master  of  journals,  is  stricken 
with  this  ancient  affliction.  Immediately  his  vast 
power  is  thrown  behind  the  organization  which  has 
so  long  been  labouring  towards  a  true  understanding 
of  it.  The  public  attention  is  fixed.  We  resolve  to 
be  no  longer  blind  to  blindness,  but  set  about  what 
is  at  once  a  study  and  a  campaign.  Mr.  Pearson  has 
transformed  his  personal  misfortune  into  a  source  of 
light  and  promise. 

In  such  circumstances  any  elucidation  of  the 
psychological  process  that  goes  on  behind  closed 
eyes  is  valuable,  but  a  report  proceeding  from  the 
centre  of  that  obscure  world  possesses  a  very  special 
value.  If  the  author  of  that  account  from  within  be, 
as  well,  a  trained  observer,  a  writer  already  dis- 
tinguished, and  a  man  of  genuine  scientific  balance, 
his  book  ceases  to  be  a  document  that  may  or  may 
not  be  read.  It  imposes  itself.  All  these  conditions 
are  amply  fulfilled  in  Le  Monde  des  Aveugles1  of  M. 
Pierre  Villey.  Self-analysis  by  the  blind  is  no  new 
phenomenon;  no  one  is  likely  to  forget,  for  instance, 
the  almost  ecstatic  quality  of  the  writings  of  Helen 
Keller,  or  the  provocative  interest  of  her  revelations. 

1  Fiammarion,  Paris,  1914. 
175 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

But  with  M.  Villey  we  enter  another  order  of  litera- 
ture. Trained  on  Braille,  and  using  it  as  his  material 
apparatus  of  communication,  he  has  on  the  one  hand 
become  master  of  a  deep  general  culture,  and  on  the 
other  he  has  produced  a  calm,  exact,  reasoned,  and 
in  all  points  convincing  examination  of  the  mental 
processes  of  his  fellow-blind.  His  book  is  a  veritable 
Baedeker  of  the  veiled  country  in  which  they  dwell. 
It  is  a  notable  step  from  myth  and  legend  to  reality. 
For,  indeed,  there  is  no  strangeness  of  human 
experience  about  which  the  mythopoeic  faculty  has 
more  eagerly  woven  its  webs.  This  exile  from  the 
sun  is  so  dramatic,  so  absolute  in  its  blackness,  as  to 
incite  any  imagination.  That  incitement  is  doubled 
when  it  is  discovered  that  a  calamity  which  seems 
the  end  of  everything  does  not  end  everything,  but 
that  the  blind  manage  to  move  about,  to  live,  and 
even  to  be  useful  in  a  world  of  the  seeing.  In 
primitive  civilizations  this  miracle  is  ascribed  to 
special  commerce  with  the  gods.  The  man  from 
w'hom  the  visible  has  been  withdrawn  is  recognized 
as  the  seer  of  the  invisible  and  the  diviner  of  the 
future.  Such  are  in  the  Greek  story  Tiresias  and 
even  Homer  himself.  In  Korea  to-day  the  blind  are 
respected  as  exorcists,  magicians,  and  healers.  In 
Turkey  they  are  valued  as  reciters  of  the  Koran  on 
ceremonial  occasions,  and  their  prayers  are  beyond 
all  others  acceptable  to  Allah.  In  Russia  the  proverb 
runs  that  "God  Himself  is  the  teacher  of  the  blind, 
and  His  works  are  made  manifest  in  them."  In 
modern  communities  the  legend  assumes  a  different 
form.  Artistically  it  is  employed  as  a  unique  symbol 
by  the  pessimists.  Synge,  for  example,  finds  it  a  fit 
vessel  in  which  to  dip  out  that  Marah-water  which 
he  finds  in  his  "Well  of  the  Saints."  In  popular 
science,  or  rather  the  unexamined  hearsay  that  passes 
for  science,  it  appears  as  an  exaggeration  of  those 
faculties  which  are  not  impaired  by  the  loss  of  sight. 

176 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

The  blind  distinguish  colours  by  touch  independently 
of  texture.  They  play  cards  with  great  success, 
especially  when  they  themselves  are  the  dealers, 
for  they  feel  accurately  the  whole  hands  of  their 
opponents.  They  carve  statues,  are  king's  tailors, 
and  duke's  coachmen.  They  know  by  the  trot  of  a 
horse  that  he  is  blind,  and  distinguish  one  pigeon 
from  another  by  the  mere  sound  of  its  wings.  In 
music  especially  they  are  supreme.  Every  blind 
person  is  a  potential,  if  not  an  actual,  fiddler;  a 
marvellous  talent  is  at  all  events  native  in  them  and 
universal.  M.  Villey,  who  refers  us  for  these 
traditionary  anecdotes  to  writers  so  little  tainted 
with  "credulity,"  as  Bayle,  Diderot,  and  Gamier, 
and  to  a  Biography  of  the  Blind  by  James  Wilson, 
does  not  attempt  to  sift  them  in  detail ;  he  sets  the 
whole  mass  aside  as  belonging  to  the  sphere  of  legendes 
abracadabrantes.  He  proceeds  upon  the  sounder 
basis  of  laboratory  exploration  and  scientifically 
examined  records  of  actual  experience.  Brushing 
aside  all  legends,  he  is  concerned  to  establish  two 
positions,  first,  that  the  blind  person  is  not  necessarily 
in  respect  of  any  sense  or  faculty  a  genius  of  any 
kind,  and  second,  that  he  is  just  as  little  of  necessity 
an  idiot  of  any  kind.  To  M.  Villey  the  most  difficult 
task  before  his  blind  is  that  of  merely  living,  of 
earning  the  bread  of  independence :  the  more  their 
mentality  is  misunderstood,  whether  by  way  of 
exaggeration  or  the  reverse,  the  more  difficult  does 
that  task  become.  Almost  with  passion  he  repu- 
diates as  a  priori  absurd  the  notion  that  four  senses 
are  better  than  five.  Any  special  refinement,  say 
of  touch  or  hearing,  that  may  manifest  itself  is  due 
solely  to  a  narrower  localization  of  attention. 
Sight  being  the  sense  of  distractions,  and  essentially 
vagrant  and  diffuse,  the  closing-up  of  it  may  pre- 
dispose to  a  more  concentrated  inner  life,  but  in 
general   the    only    principle    involved     is    that    of 

N  177 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

intensive  culture  of  a  faculty.  And,  however 
exceptionally  endowed  a  blind  subject  may  be,  he 
must  always  be  a  sense  short.  With  equal  passion, 
however,  M.  Villey  begs  us  not  to  argue  from  this 
to  a  mutilated  personality.  In  the  ordinary  case 
the  normal  mind,  and  the  whole  mind,  is  there  behind 
the  diminished  apparatus  of  perception.  The  world 
of  space  can  be  adequately  realized  through  tactile 
impressions.  If  necessarily  somewhat  limited  as 
regards  freedom  of  movement,  the  healthy  blind  can 
nevertheless  be  delivered,  by  appropriate  education, 
from  complete  helplessness  even  in  that  regard. 
They  can  be  trained  up  to  be  economically  inde- 
penndent,  and  not  mere  pitiable  parasites.  No 
intellectual  or  moral  idea  is  inaccessible  to  them. 
Given  the  material  apparatus  of  instruction,  in  the 
shape  mainly  of  a  sufficient  equipment  of  Braille 
finger-language  books,  they  can  build  a  line  of  com- 
munication to  any  section  of  general  culture.  It  is 
to  be  understood  that  this  claim  is  made  only  where 
blindness  is  the  sole  disability.  Where  graver  lesions 
of  the  organism,  and  especially  of  the  brain,  are 
involved,  we  are  commonly  in  presence  of  a  pheno- 
menon of  mental  as  well  as  of  physical  defectiveness, 
and  due  allowance  must  be  made. 

The  psychology  of  the  blind  raises  three  central 
points  of  controversy:  the  acuteness  of  the  senses 
taken  singly,  the  substitution  of  the  missing  sense 
of  vision  by  one  or  more  of  the  others,  and  the 
adequacy  of  the  four-sense  apparatus  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  reality  as  given.  The  first  is  a  measurable 
problem  of  psycho-physics.  The  evidence  of  the 
laboratory  is  alone  conclusive,  or  it  would  be  but  for 
a  weakness  on  which  M.  Villey  lays  a  shrewd  finger. 
"  Our  instruments  think  :  they  share  our  prejudices." 
The  sesthesiometer,  to  cite  the  simplest,  yields 
different  results  according  to  the  sharpness  of  its 
points  and  the  substance  of  which  the  compass  legs 

178 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

are  made.  A  more  serious  element  of  error  is  intro- 
duced by  the  character  of  the  subjects  available  for 
examination.  There  is  blindness  and  blindness.  In 
some  instances  the  vision,  and  only  the  vision,  is 
affected.  In  others  the  brain,  the  spinal  cord,  and 
the  whole  nervous  system  are  disturbed  and  debili- 
tated by  some  grave  organic  lesion.  To  classify  all 
these  together  under  the  common  rubric  of  "  the 
blind  "  is  plainly  to  invite  wide-ranging  discrepancies. 
Since  that  is  precisely  what  has  been  done,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  two  opinions  in  the  field.  On  the 
one  side,  Griesbach  and  Kunz  claim  to  have  shown 
by  a  series  of  many  thousand  experiments  that  the 
sensibility  of  the  blind  is  in  no  respect  superior  and 
is  in  very  many  respects  inferior  to  that  of  the 
seeing.  They  established  no  difference  as  regards 
hearing  or  smell.  To  tactile  impressions  they  judge 
the  blind  to  be  less  acutely  responsive.  Strangely 
enough,  they  found  the  hand,  and,  of  the  hand,  the 
index  or  reading  finger,  to  be  eminently  the  area  of 
inferiority.  On  the  other  side  the  superiority  of  the 
blind,  having  long  been  accepted  as  an  axiom,  has 
not  failed  to  secure  laboratory  confirmation  by 
Czemak,  Goltz,  Gastner,  Hocheisen,  and  Stern. 
Laura  Bridgman,  possessing  only  the  single  sense 
of  touch,  would  seem  bound  a  priori  to  excel  in  tactile 
sensibility:  actual  measurement  showed  it  to  be  two 
or  three  times  the  normal.  But  strangely  enough, 
Helen  Keller,  examined  in  a  more  coldly  scientific 
spirit,  exhibited  no  notable  superiority.  M.  Villey, 
grasping  the  controversy,  as  it  were,  from  within  as 
well  as  from  without,  is  convinced  that,  other  organic 
conditions  being  equal,  no  relation  of  superiority 
and  inferiority  can  be  scientifically  established. 
Blindness  does  not  induce  either  a  general  stupor 
or  a  general  exhaltation  of  the  other  senses. 

The  nisi  intellectus  ipse  by  the  addition  of  which 
Leibnitz  corrected  Locke's  Nihil  est  in  intcllectu  quod 

179 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

non  ante  fiterit  in  sensu  is  to  M.  Villey  the  key  to  the 
whole  business.  Not  in  the  perceiving  sense  but  in 
the  interpreting  mind  does  the  true  centre  of 
difference  reside.  The  only  "  miracle  "  with  which 
we  are  confronted  is  that  of  specialized  attention 
and  memory.  These  are  the  most  familiar  activities 
of  conscious  life,  and  are  the  matter  of  a  hundred 
text-book  instances.  An  officer  will  detect  at  the 
first  glance  at  a  line  of  soldiers  an  irregularity  of 
uniform  or  equipment  which  would  escape  an  hour's 
conscientious  scrutiny  by  a  layman.  To  a  European 
newly  landed  in  the  East  all  Chinamen  seem  the 
same ;  in  two  or  three  days  he  has  already  begun 
to  distinguish  individuals.  In  each  case  it  is  not 
the  eye  but  the  mind  that  sees  more.  The  datum 
of  sense  is  received  into  a  richer  associational  mass 
and  more  swiftly  construed.  The  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, impinging  on  a  narrower  area,  strikes 
that  area  with  more  urgent  force.  Blindness,  then, 
as  a  condition  of  mental  life,  is  for  all  the  world  like 
the  closing  of  a  lock-gate.  There  is  no  intensifica- 
tion of  the  individual  senses,  but  there  is  an 
enhanced  rapidity  of  interpretation.  The  vicariate 
of  the  senses,  as  M.  Villey  styles  it,  presents  itself 
to  him  under  an  image  which  is  very  clear  and 
suggestive : 

"  We  must  not  see  in  it,  as  is  too  often  supposed, 
a  sort  of  estate  which,  on  the  death  of  one  brother, 
is  divided  among  his  four  surviving  brothers.  Rather 
do  I  see  it  as  a  workshop,  suddenly  deserted  by  one 
of  its  artizans,  the  most  active  and  intelligent  of  all, 
one  of  those  aristocrats  of  labour  who  by  sheer 
weight  of  superior  ability  reduce  the  initiative  of 
their  fellows  almost  to  zero  and  lay  hold  of  the 
effective  direction  of  affairs.  Confronted  with  the 
enormous  increase  of  their  burdens  the  survivors 
may  doubtless  give  way  to  despair,  and  reduce  con- 
currently their  own  efforts  and  rewards  and  the  total 

180 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

volume  of  production.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
they  are  men  of  courage,  they  may  redouble  their 
efforts,  and,  profiting  by  the  imperious  need  of  their 
employer,  greatly  improve  their  material  situation. 
Were  their  comrade,  instead  of  leaving,  simply  to 
turn  over  to  them  part  of  his  task,  an  identical  result 
might  be  reached  "  (p.  70). 

The  exploitation  of  the  senses  proceeds  under  a 
sort  of  Ricardian  law  of  rent.  The  most  profitable, 
that  of  vision,  naturally  comes  first  into  use,  and 
always  yields  the  maximum  return.  But,  under  the 
pressure  of  circumstances,  the  margin  of  cultivation 
widens,  and  even  the  poorest  outlying  province  of 
perception  is  made  to  support  life.  The  normal 
man,  lord  of  five  senses,  is  free  to  squander  a  great 
part  of  his  less  valuable  resources.  Strip  his  heritage 
to  four  as  with  M.  Villey,  to  two  as  with  Helen 
Keller,  to  one  as  with  Laura  Bridgman,  and  you 
find  the  reply  of  life  and  genius  in  what  may  be 
called,  if  you  choose,  a  deepening  "  miracle  "  of  con- 
centration. Where  a  blind  person  does  possess  a 
congenital  acuteness  in  any  mode  of  perception,  that 
mode  is,  of  course,  likely  to  play  a  r6le  of  propor- 
tional importance.  Le  Monde  des  Aveugles  abounds 
in  verified  modern  examples.  For  Marie  Heurtin, 
as  for  Helen  Keller,  every  person  of  her  acquaintance 
has  a  special  odour  as  recognizable  as  the  perfume 
of  a  flower.  She  never  makes  a  mistake.  Sent  to 
the  sewing-room  with  a  message  to  one  of  her  com- 
panions, she  stands  there  on  her  arrival  slowly 
turning  her  head  and  sniffing  the  air,  until  she 
locates  her  goal.  M.  Yves  Guegan,  who  is  com- 
pletely deaf,  knows  that  the  post  has  come  by 
the  smell  of  the  postman's  letter-bag  which  he 
detects  on  the  floor  next  below  him.  In  a  series  of 
experiments  he  was  able  to  determine  his  precise 
position  in  a  room,  but  lost  this  power  as  soon  as 
his    nostrils   were   closed  with    small    rubber-faced 

181 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

pincers.  A  severe  cold  in  the  head  had  the  same 
disabling  influence  as  the  pincers.  This  subtle 
mastery  of  odour,  combined  with  the  guidance 
afforded  by  muscular  memory,  enables  him  to  find 
his  way  almost  freely  about  the  town  of  Brest  where 
he  resides.  In  the  sphere  of  touch  M.  Villey's 
explanation  dissolves  into  simplicity  the  "  marvels  " 
which  so  strongly  impress  certain  seeing  observers. 
Fluent  reading  from  Braille,  involving  as  it  does  the 
perception  through  the  index  finger  of  more  than 
two  thousand  raised  dots  per  minute,  is  on  analysis 
no  more  amazing  than,  say,  piano-playing  by  the 
normal  person.  The  printing  of  the  matter  read 
involves  the  two  thousand  dots,  but  they  have  not 
been  cognized  in  detail.  A  small,  scattered  minority 
of  them  is  sufficient  to  "  spring  the  imagination,"  as 
Meredith's  phrase  has  it,  to  stir  the  associational 
mass  in  the  mind  behind  the  finger.  Perhaps  the 
most  striking  example  of  a  very  unpromising  area 
of  perception  fructified  by  deliberate  attention  is 
afforded  by  the  blind  deaf  mutes.  Sight  and  sound 
as  such  are  forbidden  to  them,  but  they  learn  to 
detect  the  minutest  vibratory  movements  involved  in 
these  phenomena.  The  least  change  in  temperature 
or  the  lightest  undulation  of  a  column  of  air  is  laid 
hold  of  by  them  and  developed  into  a  far  from 
ineffective  guide.  M.  Guegan,  for  instance,  recog- 
nizes his  friends  by  the  vibrations  "produced  by  the 
impact  of  their  feet  on  the  ground." 

"  I  never  cross  a  street,"  he  writes,  "  without 
stopping  for  some  seconds  to  assure  myself  that  no 
vehicle  is  passing:  this  I  judge  from  the  vibrations 
of  the  ground  under  my  feet.  These  are  to  me  a 
fruitful  source  of  information  ;  I  perceive  them  so 
clearly  that  I  have  the  illusion  of  actually  hearing." 

The  mythology  of  the  subject  has  uniformly 
ascribed  to  the  blind  a  sixth  sense,  sometimes 
represented  as  the  sense  of  orientation,  sometimes 

182 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

as  that  of  obstacles.  Certain  psychologists,  like 
M.  Woelfflin,  have  not  only  believed  that  there  is 
such  a  sense,  but  they  have  even  located  it  for  its 
physiological  base  in  the  nervus  trigeminus.  But 
upon  the  non-existence  of  any  such  compensation 
M.  Villey  is  sharply  definite.  It  is  true,  we  learn 
from  him,  that  many  blind  persons  claim  to  be 
conscious  of  a  sort  of  toucher  a  distance,  a  new  order 
of  sensation  experienced  mainly  about  the  temples. 
But  on  examination  the  evidence  is  found  to  be 
inconclusive.  In  many  instances,  whether  the  sub- 
ject be  blind  or  seeing,  some  cutaneous  affection  such 
as  scarlatina  or  smallpox  will  be  found  to  have 
produced  hyper-aesthesia.  In  the  remainder  the 
sixth  sense  is  no  more  than  a  more  sensitive  inter- 
pretation of  the  data  normally  given,  especially  of 
those  of  temperature,  odour,  and  undulation. 

Among  the  most  fascinating  of  his  chapters  is  that 
in  which  M.  Villey  discusses  the  possibility  of 
attaining,  through  purely  tactile  impressions,  an 
adequate  perception  of  space.  Such  a  question 
clearly  plunges  us  en  pleine  metaphysique,  and  runs 
down  to  the  foundations  of  epistemology.  According 
to  an  authority  like  Platner,  the  blind  perceive 
extension  under  the  form,  not  of  space,  but  of  time. 
Between  them  and  the  seeing  there  is  fixed  a  gulf 
which  can  never  be  crossed.  To  the  fantastic 
geometries  of  four  dimensions  must  be  added 
another  still  stranger,  the  geometry  of  the  blind. 
Such  a  view  receives  no  support  from  the  author 
of  Le  Monde  des  Aveugles.  The  problem  of  the 
Many  and  the  One,  the  passage  from  concrete  and 
multiple  impressions  to  the  generic  idea,  is  no  doubt 
worked  out  more  painfully  in  terms  of  touch  than  in 
those  of  sight.  But  the  process  of  elaboration  leaves 
the  sightless  also  in  possession  of  images  "extended, 
synthetic,  extremely  supple  and  mobile."  It  is  a 
sort  of  tactile  vision. 

183 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

"  The  word  sight  alone  seems  adequate  to  those 
apparitions  which  surge  through  the  mind,  free  from 
any  admixture  of  purely  muscular  sensations,  from 
any  representation  through  the  fingers  or  the  hands, 
less  rich,  less  complex,  considerably  less  extended 
than  visual  ideas,  but  like  them  at  the  same  time 
one  and  many,  grasped  in  their  integrity  and  in  their 
details  by  the  inner  eye  of  consciousness  "  (p.  167). 

The  difference  of  modality  does  not  prevent  the 
conquest  of  the  same  substantial  result.  The  pro- 
cedure of  touch  is  analytical  and  successive,  whereas 
that  of  vision  is  synthetic  and  instantaneous.  But 
when  the  material  given  in  perception  has  been,  so 
to  say,  chewed  over  by  the  mind,  it  undergoes  a 
transformation.  Memory  brings  back  an  object  not 
fragmentarily,  but  in  a  flash: 

"  It  is  not  a  defile,  a  successive  unfolding,  however 
rapid,  of  representations  in  which  the  different  parts 
are  added  one  to  the  other  in  the  order  in  which 
they  were  first  experienced.  It  is  a  fountaining 
forth  (jaillissement).     The  object  recurs  en  bloc." 

If  we  turn  to  the  degree  of  mastery  of  practical 
life  which  modern  educational  apparatus  permits  a 
blind  person  to  attain,  at  least  in  favourable  circum- 
stances, we  come  on  many  interesting  facts.  One  of 
M.  Villey's  correspondents  is  a  commercial  traveller 
who  makes  long  railway  journeys  without  any  dis- 
agreeable incident.  Many  others  are  musicians, 
especially  organists.  M.  Beraud,  of  Marseilles,  works 
with  success  as  an  electrician ;  M.  Demonet,  of 
Vichy,  is  a  prosperous  piano-maker.  It  would,  how- 
ever, be  a  mere  illusion  of  optimism  to  suppose  that 
in  any  of  these  skilled  pursuits  the  real  handicap  of 
blindness  has  been  wholly  overcome.  M.  Villey 
himself  has  made  a  distinguished  mark  in  literature, 
and,  what  is  even  more  remarkable,  in  the  literature 
of  erudition.  He  is  one  of  the  best-known  Montaigne 
scholars.     His  edition  of  the  Essais  is,  in  the  full 

184 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

sense  of  the  word,  monumental.  He  has  followed, 
with  the  most  minute  care,  the  track  of  Montaigne's 
reading  and  has  reconstructed,  almost  year  by  year, 
a  history  of  his  mind  and  imagination.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  in  this  huge  task  he  had  the  aid 
of  secretaries  and  friends,  but,  when  all  that  has 
been  taken  into  account,  it  remains  an  astonishing 
achievement.  Accomplished  critic  that  he  is,  M. 
Villey  is  at  his  best  in  his  analysis  of  the  art  life 
possible  to  the  blind,  both  creative  and  appreciative. 
He  introduces  us  to  a  blind  German  novelist  of 
great  merit,  Oskar  Baum,  author  of  Das  Leben  im 
Dunkeln,  and  to  a  French  poetess,  Mme.  Galeron. 
He  examines  passages  from  Flaubert  and  Hugo,  and 
finds  them  curiously  independent  of  visual  sensations, 
almost  wholly  compacted  of  sound  and  movement. 
In  the  lyrical  pages  of  Helen  Keller  he  is  sorry  to 
discover  at  many  points  mere  verbalism,  or  even 
psittacism.  Most  of  all  does  he  distrust  her  claim 
to  penetrate  into  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  sculpture 
through  the  medium  of  touch.  For  him,  visible 
beauty  is  a  world  shut  hopelessly  against  the  blind. 
From  the  reports  of  the  seeing  they  may,  indeed, 
construct  some  vague  notion  of  such  a  reality,  but 
this  is  far  from  constituting  any  real  knowledge  of 
it.  The  gates  of  that  Eden  are  closed  against  them. 
But  much  is  open.  How  much,  one  hardly  under- 
stands until  one  has  accompanied  this  humane  and 
gracious  scholar  in  his  survey  of  a  strange  world. 
The  long  educational  effort  extending  through  Haiiy 
and  Braille  down  to  our  own  time  has  delivered  these 
disinherited  from  isolation  and  restored  them  to 
human  intercourse.  The  pathos  of  their  affliction 
is  no  longer  intolerable.  If  they  accept  the  condi- 
tions set  them  in  the  noble  spirit  that  breathes 
through  Le  Monde  des  Aveuglcs,  they  are  lifted  into 
a  sort  of  mountain-air  of  morality  :  they  wear  their 
calamity  like  a  crown. 

185 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

I  cannot  think  of  any  single  piece  of  work  that 
would  help  to  an  understanding  of  the  blind  so 
greatly  as  an  English  translation  of  this  book. 
M.  Villey's  scientific  equipment  is  at  all  points 
adequate.  He  has  produced  a  chapter  of  compara- 
tive psychology  of  a  new  order,  and  of  unique 
value.  It  is  a  clear  addition  to  the  weight  of 
evidence  in  support  of  the  spiritual  interpretation  of 
conscious  life  as  against  the  meaner  theories  of 
empiricism.  Everywhere  we  come  upon  a  soul 
straining  painfully  for  expression  behind  the 
mutilated  organs  of  sense,  but  it  is  an  integral  soul. 

As  I  have  said,  the  scientific  interest  of  M.  Villey's 
work  is  touched  throughout  with  a  warm  glow  of 
emotion.  A  great  wind  of  loneliness  blows  through 
it ;  you  are  made  aware  of  the  more  than  feminine 
passion  for  sympathy  of  these  gens  incompris  of 
our  kind.  But  behind  all  is  the  desire  that  the 
seeing  may  understand  in  order  that  they  may  help. 
Not  the  almoner  but  the  educator,  not  "  institu- 
tional treatment,"  as  our  chilly  phrase  has  it — with 
its  leading-strings,  and  crutches,  and  uniforms,  and 
big  refectories  smelling  of  shell-cocoa — but,  as  far  as 
possible,  the  life  of  the  economically  independent 
citizen,  such  is  the  burden  of  M.  Villey's  appeal. 
How  far  is  it  realizable  ?  The  results  of  an  enquiry 
undertaken  in  1905  into  the  progress  of  264  pupils 
of  the  Institution  Nationale  des  ]  tunes  Aveugles,  are 
suggestive.  Of  these  64  had  been  obliged  to  return 
home  after  their  school  course;  30  of  them 
were  able  to  make  some  contribution  to  the  house- 
hold budget,  but  the  remainder  were,  through 
disease  or  inferiority  of  intelligence,  entirely 
dependent.  A  second  group  of  94  just  contrived  to 
support  a  celibate  existence.  Some  of  them  were 
obliged  from  time  to  time  to  apply  for  assistance,  but 
per  contra  some  also  were  found  to  be  almost  well-to- 
do.    Forty  per  cent.,  that  is  to  say,  106,  had  married, 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

and  were  enjoying  the  normal  life  of  domesticity. 
Of  these  16  had  failed  in  the  struggle,  18  were 
unable  to  keep  going  without  occasional  help  from 
the  Institution,  but  the  remaining  72  had  made  their 
way,,  and  30  of  them  were  very  comfortable.  In  all 
85  per  cent,  had  discovered  in  our  economic 
organization  some  niche  into  which  they  fitted.  The 
figures,  it  should  be  added,  relate  exclusively  to 
males. 

A  curious  feature  noted  is  that,  subjectively,  this 
success  is  felt  to  be  greater  than  in  its  objective  self 
it  actually  is.  Many  of  the  pupils  came  from  the 
poorest  sections  of  the  labouring  classes:  their 
physical  affliction  procured  for  them  an  education 
far  superior  to  that  available  for  their  healthier 
brothers  and  sisters,  and  on  leaving  school  they  took 
their  places  several  stages  higher  in  the  hierarchy 
of  industry.  Many  of  them  go  so  far  as  to  refer  to 
their  blindness  as  a  "happy  accident,"  a  "pro- 
vidential calamity,"  and  so  on.  The  more  naive 
and  self-sufficient,  indeed,  develop  in  regard  to  their 
relatives  all  the  symptoms  of  the  thorough  snob. 

The  occupations  to  which  the  specialized  education 
of  the  blind  leads  them  to  gravitate  have  already 
been  indicated.  We  may  set  aside  as  freaks  of 
genius  the  more  astonishing  of  the  cases  on  record. 
True,  we  do  find  at  Marseilles  M.  Beraud  working 
successfully  as  an  electrical  engineer.  He  has. 
unaided  except  by  an  apprentice,  planned  and 
erected  many  installations,  private  and  ecclesiastical. 
At  the  Paris  Automobile  Exhibition  of  1910  he  took 
down,  repaired,  and  set  up  again  many  motor 
vehicles.  At  the  automobile  trials  of  Ventouse  in 
191 1  a  tandem  motor  bicycle,  built  in  part  by 
himself,  with  his  mechanic  as  pilot  and  himself  as 
passenger,  obtained  second  prize.  Similar,  though 
less  impressive,  is  the  work  of  M.  Mounnich  at 
Magdeburg.    We  have  details  of  a  blind  brewer  who 

187 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

exercised  his   profession  with  considerable  success 
for  ten  years,  of  a  blind  cut-glass  worker,  of  a  blind 
vine-dresser  whose  skill  had  become  a  tradition  of 
his    country-side.      M.    Villey    himself    personally 
examined  the  case  of  a  blind  cutler,  recently  dead, 
at   Vichy.     Under  the  eyes  of   our  author  he  per- 
formed all  the  most  difficult  processes  of  his  trade. 
What  most  impressed  M.  Villey  was  the  infallible 
precision  with  which  he  put  together  the  component 
pieces,  six  or  seven  in  number,  of  his  knife-hafts, 
already  shaped  by  himself  in  ivory,  horn,  copper,  or 
iron.     A  M.  Person,  also  at  Paris,  had  arrived,  and 
believed  that  any  blind  mechanic  could  arrive,  at  a 
complete  mastery  of  clock-cleaning  and  repairing. 
But,  in   M.  Villey's  reasoned  judgment,  success  in 
such  enterprises  demands  a  "  conspiracy  of  benevo- 
lence "  in  addition  to  a  marked  originality  which  is 
by  no  means  the  general  heritage  of  the  blind.      He 
found  further,  on  investigation  of  the  "documented  " 
marvels,    that   in   practically   no    instance  was   the 
blind  mechanic,  however  well   he  worked,  able  to 
work    fast    enough   to   earn    his    living.      In   other 
branches  in  which  less  skill  is  required,  and  in  which 
special  training  operates   as   a   set-off  against   the 
natural  advantage  of  the  seeing,  the  prospect  is  much 
more  hopeful.     Chief  of  these  are  music,  and  the 
industries  associated  with  it.     As  is  well-known,  the 
teaching  of  music  has  long  occupied  a  prominent 
place  in  the  curriculum  of  the  blind,  and  this  study 
is  so  neglected  in   normal  schools  that    something 
approximating   to   a   fair   start    is    possible.       The 
natural  faculty  of  the  blind  pupil  is  so  fully  evoked 
as  to  transform  a  minus  into  a  plus.     Very  many 
blind  persons  of  both  sexes  have  made  their  way  as 
organists,    music-teachers,    and    even    minor   com- 
posers.     The  less   fine   talents   attempted,   against 
the  advice  of  their  educators,  piano-tuning,  with  the 
slight  grasp  of  mechanics  involved,  and  from  that 


THE  WORLD  OF  THE  BLIND 

passed  on  to  piano-building,  and  in  certain  cases  to 
furniture-making.  Of  this  class  the  success  of 
genius  is  that  of  M.  Demonet.  He  acquired  a 
decaying  piano-factory,  and  in  one  year  more 
than  restored  its  former  prosperity.  His  story, 
which  is  too  long  for  minute  narration,  approaches 
more  nearly  than  any  of  the  others  to  the  fairy- 
tale. Its  special  interest  is  that  it  centres  in  a 
domain  for  which  the  blind  are  specialized,  and  in 
which,  in  all  the  capacities  enumerated,  they  have 
in  large  numbers  succeeded.  Medical  massage 
is  yet  another  of  these  particular  areas.  The 
"more  scientific  fingers"  of  the  blind,  that  touch 
which  has  long  been  legendary,  find  in  massage  an 
occupation  that  literally  plays  into  their  hand.  And 
as  massage  becomes  a  more  and  more  popular  treat- 
ment, and  as  the  employment  of  a  blind  masseuse  or 
masseur  enables  a  lady  or  gentleman  of  fashion  to 
gratify  without  any  extra  expense  the  two  passions 
of  curiosity  and  pity,  it  would  seem  to  be  a  career 
with  a  future.  The  teaching  of  modern  languages 
is  another  avenue  of  promise  opened  by  a  change  of 
method.  Living  languages  are  now  learned  not 
from  dead  print  but  from  living  speech.  With 
appropriate  training  the  memory  of  a  blind  pupil  of 
a  linguistic  turn  can  easily  be  stocked  with  adequate 
material  of  instruction.  The  Braille  system  opens  a 
way,  though  a  narrow  way,  into  the  garden  of  litera- 
ture. The  demand  for  the  teaching  of  modern 
languages  grows  every  year,  and  all  these  are  favour- 
able influences.  At  the  same  time  the  attainment 
of  a  position  in  the  world  of  erudition  comparable  to 
that  of  M.  Villey's  must  continue  to  be  a  phenom- 
enon as  rare  as  it  is  precious. 

The  whole  task  before  us  is  the  adaptation  of  the 
blind  to  their  economic  environment.  It  is  not 
enough  to  spend  benevolently  :  the  State  and  private 
philanthropists  must  also  spend  intelligently.     The 

189 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

blind  fiddler,  led  about  by  his  faithful  dog,  and  the 
blind  osier-weaver  and  basket-maker,  do  not  exhaust 
the  field  of  proved  possibility.  A  more  valuable 
help  towards  ths  new  programme  than  Le  Monde  des 
Aveugles  I  cannot  easily  imagine.  On  the  one  side 
it  is  the  science  and  the  politics  of  blindness ;  on  the 
other  its  most  poignant  because  its  most  penetrating 
literature.  We  have  been  accustomed  to  speak  of 
the  blind  leading  the  blind  as  a  counter-sense.  In 
M.  Villey  there  enters  a  blind  man  who  also  leads 
the  seeing. 


190 


A  MAN  TROUBLED  ABOUT 
EVERYTHING 

My  drowse  had  already  been  shattered  by  a  sharp 
click  on  the  pavement  of  the  verandah.  Then,  as  a 
chair  was  pushed  back  with  that  crunching  creak, 
which  is  the  least  tolerable  of  all  domestic  noises,  I 
turned  to  my  neighbour. 

"You  have  lost  your  pipe?" 

Together  we  found  it.  He  borrowed  my  tobacco 
pouch — the  ritual  of  initiation  into  friendship.  He 
stared  with  dead  eyes  into  the  fires  and  darknesses 
of  a  sea,  caressed  by  a  headland,  wooded  down  to  the 
shore,  and  said  heavily  : 

"It  is  good  to  find  a  lost  pipe,  but  it  is  easy.  I 
have  lost  something  else  that  I  do  not  think  even 
the  Paduan  Saint  Anthony  will  find  for  me :  /  have 
lost  my  Tabic  of  Values." 

"Are  you  a  worshipper  at  the  shrine  of  the  idyllic 
cabbage?"  I  asked,  "and  are  they  food  values?  Or 
a  painter,  and  are  they  colour  values?  Or  a  mere 
stockbroker,  left  without  a  key  to  the  madness  of  the 
money  page  in  this  evening's  paper?" 

"  I  speak,"  he  went  on,  "  of  what  I  would  call  life 
values,  if  that  vocable  '  life  '  had  any  clear  meaning. 
Those  two-column  arrangements  of  experience  into 
Good  and  Bad,  Good  and  Better  ....  a  more 
important  distinction  ....  Right  and  Wrong,  Aye 
and  No." 

"  Have  you  applied  to  your  Party  Whips  ? "  I 
pursued.  "  A  friend  of  mine  always  gets  his  there 
ready  made.  Very  reasonably,  too.  Of  course  they 
don't   always   fit   at   the   shoulders   as  well  as  the 

191 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

tailored  article.  But  they  keep  out  the  cold,  and 
keep  you  out  of  it  ?  Have  you  tried  the  Bishop  of 
London?  Or  Mr.  Garvin  ?  Or  the  Militants  ?  Or 
Mr.  Ramsay  Macdonald  ?  Or  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw, 
to  mention  whom — I  omit  Messieurs  Belloc  and 
Chesterton — is  now  a  recognized  duty  in  conver- 
sation ?  Or,  greatest  of  English  names,  Mr.  F.  E. 
Smith  ?  There  are  no  flies  of  doubt  to  spoil  the 
soup  of  certainty  for  any  of  these  people.  They 
know." 

My  companion  almost  slipped  into  anger,  but 
caught  himself  short  on  the  brink. 

"Of  the  Militants,"  he  said,  "let  us  not  speak 
either  in  praise  or  blame.  Who  am  I  that  I  should 
refuse  the  epic  duel  of  sex  ?  I  am  not  greedy  :  I  do 
not  ask  for  woman's  wisdom,  only  for  man's.  That 
gaitered  contradiction,  the  Bishop  of  London,  is  of 
no  use  to  me,  nor  that  candent  Scotchman,  who 
thinks  himself  a  Socialist  while  he  is  only  a  meta- 
physician. Shaw  bores  me :  besides,  he  is  a 
hippo-cerf.  Mr.  Smith's  manners  are  so  bad  that 
even  if  he  had  the  secret  of  eternal  life  I  should 
decline  to  be  saved  under  the  barking  monosyllable 
of  his  opprobrious  name.  Mr.  Garvin  is  a  squirrel. 
Here  he  is  now,  cracking  nuts  among  the  fallen  leaves. 
Your  eyes  quit  him  for  a  moment,  and  when  you  see 
him  again  he  is  perched  on  some  quite  ridiculous 
tree,  looking  as  debonair  and  dogmatic  about  his 
new  posture  as  he  was  about  his  old.  Party  Whips 
are  good  as  far  as  they  go.  I  do  not  want  to  see 
them  slain  at  the  crossing  of  the  ways,  and  the  world 
swaggering  into  anarchism.  But  there  is  no  ultimacy 
in  them.  Their  function  is — if  you  follow  me — 
soaked  in  relativity  ?  " 

When  a  large  metaphysical  boulder  of  this  kind  is 
hurled  at  you  it  is  discreet  to  be  offensive,  and,  if 
possible,  literary. 

"  Balzac,"   I  observed,  "  recounts  in  one   of  his 

192 


A  MAN  TROUBLED  ABOUT  EVERYTHING 

novels  what  he  calls  the  pursuit  of  the  absolute.  Pur- 
suit and  pursuer  end,  I  seem  to  remember,  in  a 
commodious  lunatic  asylum,  agreeably  situated  in  a 
well-kept  forest." 

"  Yes !  they  attain  certainty  in  these  places,"  he 
mused,  "but  the  price  is  too  big.  A  lunatic,  observe, 
is  a  person  who  is  quite  sure  about  one  thing,  and 
that  thing  is  wrong.  I  had  a  friend  who  was  quite 
sure  that  he  was  a  poached  egg.  They  had  to 
upholster  his  chair  with  dry  toast  in  order  to  induce 
him  to  sit  down.  To  attain  that  certainty  about  a 
right  thing,  and  without  the  expense  and  bother  of 
going  mad,  is  just  my  problem." 

"  Is  it  not  possible,"  I  asked,  still  smarting,  "  to 
live  on  the  accumulations  of  history,  and  the 
momentum  of  civilization  ?  Just  keep  up  with  the 
band,  you  know  ?  " 

"  There  are  so  many  bands  and  so  many  airs !  I 
can't  march  to  infinity  in  all  directions  at  the  same 
time.  Besides  it  is  undignified  to  drown  the  music 
of  the  soul  in  somebody  else's  tin  whistle  !  " 

"  What  are  you  chiefly  troubled  about  ?  " 

"  I  am  chiefly  troubled  about  everything,"  came 
his  reply,  somewhat  brusquely.  "  The  world  sets 
me  the  conundrum  :  Christianity  or  ....  or  ...  . 
or  the  other  thing  ?  I  am,  as  they  say,  at  heart  a 
Christian.  But  I  read  a  twelve-and-sixpenny  book 
blowing  it  sky-high  ....  a  good  metaphor  that,  by 
the  way.  How  can  anything  be  true  enough  to 
withstand  the  assault  of  a  twelve-and-sixpenny  book  ? 
Then  I  read  another  twelve-and-sixpenny  book  in 
defence  of  it,  usually  by  a  German  professor.  I  end 
by  not  knowing  even  what  Christianity  is.  Then 
the  world  says  :  Marriage  or  ....  or  the  other 
thing.  I  am  all  for  indissoluble  marriage.  But 
people  send  me  pamphlets.  Here  in  this  very  hotel 
I  meet  a  lady,  a  most  charming  lady,  who  assures 
me  that  unless  divorce  is  made  cheap,  private,  and 

193  o 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

almost  automatic  she  will  be  forced  to  poison  her 
husband,  a  most  estimable  man  with  a  splendid  golf 
temperament." 

"  Hard  lines  on  her,"  I  managed  to  interpolate. 
"  And  poisoning  is  such  a  highly  specialized  industry 
nowadays  !  " 

"  Then  the  world  says :  Individualism  or  Socialism ? 
I  know  myself  that  our  present  industrial  system  is 
enough  to  make  a  cat  laugh,  and  an  angel  weep. 
But  I  read  a  book — I  am  always  reading  books — 
which  tells  me  that,  if  we  have  public  ownership, 
my  individuality  will  be  kneaded  into  an  amorphic 
mass  ....  or  mess,  I  forget  which.  I  don't  want 
to  be  kneaded  into  either.  Going  home  I  am  kept 
waiting  five,  ten,  thirty  minutes  for  my  train.  Like 
any  other  gentleman  I  mutter:  Bless  these  railway 
directors !  Some  red-tie  overhears  me.  He  insists 
on  linking  me  into  my  compartment,  and  assaults 
me  with  Socialist  principles  and  Prussian  statistics 
until  my  head  reels,  and  my  individualism  with  it." 
"  You  have  at  least  the  comfort  that  goes  with  an 
open  mind  ? " 

"An  open  mind  brings  about  as  much  comfort  as 
an  open  door  on  a  sleety  day  in  January.  Militarism 
or  Pacifism  ?  I  dislike  killing  :  that  makes  me  the 
one.  I  dislike  the  German  syntax :  that  makes  me 
the  other.  Free  Trade  or  Tariff  Reform  I  have 
happily  been  able  to  postpone." 
"Indeed!"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  iterated  firmly.  "There  is  such  a  jolly 
scuffle  going  on  between  the  various  tariffs  in  their 
own  kennel  that  I  can  wait  till  the  winning  dog 
emerges.  But  then:  Bacon  or  Shakespeare?  John 
Masefield  or  ...  .  poetry  ?  And  so  on,  for  the  path 
between  these  antitheses  leads  to  the  world's  end 
and  dips  over  into  infinity." 
After  a  pause,  he  went  on : 

"  Have  the  courtesy  at  least  not  to  mention  Hamlet, 
a  detestable  play  in  which  the  supreme  intellectual 

194 


A  MAN  TROUBLED  ABOUT  EVERYTHING 

problem,  that  of  evidence,  is  solved  in  terms  of  Drury 
Lane.  ...  I  have  not  spoken  of  such  minor  but 
besetting  dubieties  as:  When  shall  we  have  a  General 
Election?   Who  will  win  the  Cricket  Championship?" 

"Still,"  I  said,  "If  we  are  to  live  at  all  we  must 
have  a  point  of  view,  a  philosophy." 

"Philosophy,"  he  replied,  "is  a  blanket  which  men 
have  woven  to  protect  themselves  against  life,  which 
is,  I  suggest,  on  the  whole  something  of  a  frost. 
When  more  than  usually  frightened  they  pull  the 
blanket  up  over  their  heads.  But  I  too  have  mine. 
Did  you  ever  see  a  weather-vane  ?  " 

"  Really,"  I  was  beginning. 

"  Most  people  know  it  only  as  a  literary  image. 
A  weather-vane  is  a  very  insubstantial,  rotatory 
object  set  on  a  very  substantial,  fixed  object,  say,  a 
tin  arrow  on  a  cathedral.  My  public  self  is  the  tin 
arrow  which  whirls  round  with  every  breeze.  My 
reserve  personality  is  the  cathedral.  That  it  is  there 
I  know:  what  it  is  like  I  can  in  no  way  discover.  I 
follow  the  most  popular  of  all  religions,  the  religion 
of  never  giving  yourself  away." 

Then,  catching  at  an  unspoken  question  : 

"How  I  earn  my  living?  I  don't.  I  am  a  gentle- 
man of  independent  means.  This  religion  of  mine 
is  fully  furnished.  It,  too,  if  we  may  continue  the 
figure,  has  its  cathedral :  that  vastest  and  most 
splendid  of  all  contemporary  buildings,  the  hotel. 
It  has  its  seven  sacraments:  the  cheque-book,  the 
motor-car,  the  golf-links,  the  chef,  and  ....  why 
yes!  ....  three  whiskey-and-sodas.    Goodnight!" 

The  chair  crunched  departure.  The  Man  who 
has  lost  his  Table  of  Values  disappeared,  and  left 
me  staring  into  the  darkness  and  the  fires  of  night. 

Our  modern  disease  is  not  that  we  are  proud,  but 
that  we  are  proud  about  the  wrong  things.  We 
have  gained  the  whole  world,  and  cravenly  cancelled 
our  own  souls.  Many  of  our  popular  novelists  and 
their  readers  are  in  the  case  of  the  king  in  the  fairy- 

195 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

tale  :  they  are  naked  to  all  the  winds.  Human  life 
needs  a  garment  of  philosophy  if  it  is  to  endure,  and 
they  have  none.  If  a  man  will  but  consent  to  accept 
that  which  has  been  woven  for  him  by  the  secular 
labour  of  civilization  out  of  many  inter-mixed  fibres 
— God,  immortality,  the  Christian  creed,  marriage, 
property,  and  freedom — he  need  not  shiver.  As  a 
magnet  pulls  into  patterned  order  what  was  an 
incoherent  mass  of  iron  filings,  so  these  central 
ideas  send  out  a  current  of  principle  through  the  vast 
and  amazing  medley  of  modern  life  and  literature. 

It  is  because  Mr.  Chesterton  and  Mr.  Belloc  stand 
for  these  romantic  and  redeeming  commonplaces 
that  they  are  the  greatest  spiritual  forces  in  English 
letters.  But  even  they  shine  with  a  dimmed  lustre. 
I  cannot  forgive  Mr.  Belloc  that  knock-about 
anarchism,  which  he  mistakes  for  political  health. 
And  who  can  forgive  Mr.  Chesterton  his  awful 
jolliness?  Show  him  a  corpse,  just  fished  out  of 
the  Thames,  or  the  murderer  of  it,  or  an  interna- 
tional financier,  or  any  other  hideous  object,  and  he 
is  off  at  once  to  dictate  an  article  for  the  Daily  Neivs, 
explaining  how  awfully  jolly  the  whole  thing  is. 
Optimism  must  dominate  the  orchestra,  no  doubt, 
but  it  ought  to  be  played  on  discreetly  muted  strings. 

We  touch  the  highest  wisdom  when  we  learn  to 
rejoice  in  our  limitations.  Why  be  angry  at  the 
narrowness  of  our  compass,  seeing  that  we  have  all 
eternity  in  which  progressively  to  widen  it  ?  It 
braces  the  curious  mind — and  what  is  mind  but 
curiosity  ? — to  realize  that,  because  of  the  inexhausti- 
bility of  knowledge,  we  are  saved  from  all  menace 
of  tedium  ;  that  a  new  adventure  awaits  us  behind 
every  blade  of  grass;  and  that,  released  at  last  from 
the  fetters  of  time  and  space,  but  not  from  those  of 
individuality,  our  finitude  will  have  scope  to  follow 
the  old  trail  of  infinity  in  an  endless  asymptote. 
Truly,  narrow-mindednessisthe  beginning  of  wisdom. 

196 


NOVEMBER  FIRST  :  THE  DAY 
OF  ALL  THE  DEAD 

Verlaine,  to  whom  the  whole  rebellion  of  art 
came  under  the  form  of  music,  in  that  mode  also 
experienced  autumn.  Not  through  the  eye,  as  with 
Keats,  but  through  the  ear  her  ambiguous  beauty  of 
achievement  and  decay  entered  his  soul.  He  heard 
it  as  a  long-sobbing  violin,  to  which  a  tumult  of 
leaves  and  illusions,  severed  from  the  roots  of  life, 
circled  about  in  a  grave  saraband  of  despair.  And 
since  music  is,  as  it  is,  a  food  as  fit  for  melancholy 
as  for  love,  the  high  road  of  initiation  into  death, 
and  the  cradle-language  of  immortality,  the  exquisite 
dereliction  of  the  French  poet  does  in  truth  evoke 
the  very  spirit  of  this  withering  and  sombre  time. 

Circumambient  blue  walls  of  mist  close  up  our 
horizons  of  hope,  rising  as  Merlin's  prison  rises  in 
the  saga.  We  feel  a  chill  drowsiness  flowing 
through  all  the  veins  of  existence  :  it  is  as  if  the 
world,  like  Socrates,  were  dying  from  the  feet  up. 
A  wintry  silence  has  fallen  on  the  birds,  if  it  be  not 
for  that  epitome  of  loneliness,  the  cry  of  the  lapwing, 
or  the  clangour  of  rooks  or  of  wedged  battalions  of 
wild  geese,  cleaving  the  emptiness  of  the  sky. 

Over  all  this  ritual  of  desolation  the  trees  prevail, 
towering  above  the  rout  like  the  captains  of  a 
defeated  army.  The  flame  of  October  has  burned 
itself  out ;  the  glory  of  red  and  orange,  and  bronze 
which  wrapped  the  woods  in  a  conflagration  of 
beauty  has  smouldered  down  to  faint  embers.  The 
oak  still  keeps  its  leaf,  and  here  and  there  the  eye 
encounters  the  bulk  of  an  elm,  not  yet  denuded,  or 

197 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

the  lyrical  gleam  of  a  birch  that  has  so  far  missed 
its  cue  of  departure.  But  as  for  the  rest,  they  are 
no  more  than  a  shuddering  nakedness.  To  Verlaine, 
as  to  all  the  poets,  they  are  the  wailing  violins  or 
lutes  of  the  storm.  Along  many  an  avenue  or 
canal  as  gracious  as  that  which  Hobbima  painted, 
the  poplars  stand  up  above  the  dim  water  like 
candlesticks  of  mourning  set  beside  a  catafalque. 
In  truth  they  are  the  funeral  torches  of  autumn. 

The  poets,  since  poetry  first  was,  have  recorded 
all  this  spectacle  of  decadence  with  the  faithful 
agony  with  which  one  records  the  oncoming  of  death 
over  the  lineaments  of  a  beloved  face.  In  magic  of 
description  there  is  hardly  anywhere  a  touch  that 
excels  the  "  leopard  woods  "  and  "  mouse-coloured 
waters  "  celebrated  by  Mr.  Yeats.  As  for  symbol- 
ism and  philosophy,  all  the  singers  are  but  too  prone 
to  sentimentalize  themselves  into  a  mere  pagan 
cowardice  of  despair.  Religion  alone  confronts 
material  dissolution  with  right  courage — the  courage 
of  the  faith  that  looks  through  death. 

For  it  is  no  chance,  but  a  deliberate  choice,  that 
consecrates  this  grey  prologue  of  winter  to  the 
memory  of"  All  the  Dead."  Not  a  village  in  France 
— the  true  Catholic  France — but  will  see  to-day  the 
last  flowers  of  the  year  strewn,  for  a  festival  in  which 
belief  almost  becomes  vision,  over  graves  at  which 
the  elders  will  kneel,  and  the  children  be  not  for- 
bidden to  play.  In  Tyrolese  hamlets  the  little  fonts 
of  holy  water  that  hang  by  every  tombstone,  how- 
ever wretched,  will  be  filled  for  sprinkling,  and 
the  bells  rung. 

In  many  an  Irish  farmhouse  or  cottage,  where 
the  old  customs  are  not  wholly  forgotten,  the  hearth 
will  be  clean  swept,  and  a  new  fire  laid  down,  with 
a  chair  set  before  it  for  every  member  of  the  house- 
hold who  has  passed  ex  umbris  et  imaginibus.  For 
it  is  thought  that  they  are  privileged  to  revisit  to- 

198 


NOVEMBER  FIRST 

night  the  place  of  their  childhood.  Dead  names 
will  be  cried  about  the  winds,  the  names  of  those 
who  achieved,  the  names  of  those  who  were  broken 
or  who  broke  themselves.  Not  a  heart  but  about 
its  portals  there  will  flutter  a  strange  drift  of  mem- 
ories, for  it  is  the  Day  of  All  the  Dead.  Happy — 
thrice  happy  in  "  drear-nighted  November  " — is  the 
faith  of  those  for  whom  the  dead  have  gone  not  into 
the  night,  but  into  the  light. 


199 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  BEING 
NARROW-MINDED 

The  attempt  of  any  individual  mind  to  come  to 
terms  with  the  modern  world  as  a  whole  is  like  an 
attempt  to  decant  the  Atlantic  into  a  thimble. 

Every  contemporary  book  is  a  record  of  the  fashion 
in  which  some  particular  thimble  was  defeated,  and 
of  the  mood  or  the  philosophy  in  which  it  accepted 
its  defeat.  The  characteristic  note  of  our  day  is  not 
pride.  It  is  not  Professor  Schafer's  threat  that,  if 
we  are  not  very  nice  to  him,  he  will  one  day  manu- 
facture a  frog  out  of  an  old  pair  of  boots  and  a  bowl 
of  sugar.  Nor  is  it  the  graver  threat  of  the  Eugenic 
Society  that,  if  we  are  very  nice,  they  will  arrange 
for  the  birth  of  a  race  of  beings  so  glorious  as  to  be 
indistinguishable  from  the  members  of  their  own 
committee.  Nor  that  less  scientific  and  more  toler- 
able will-o'-the-wisp,  the  Superman,  lately  deceased; 
nor  any  other  proclamation  of  our  imminent  omni- 
potence. 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  re-discovery  of  the  intoxi- 
cating fact  that  man  is  finite,  fallible,  prone  to  sin, 
dyspepsia,  and  influenza,  and  that,  in  general,  he  is 
rather  small  beer.  Lord  Rosebery,  for  instance,  is 
so  annoyed  at  an  inspection  of  the  shelves  laden  with 
books  which  he  cannot  possibly  read,  that  he  invites 
us  to  put  a  match  to  every  library,  and  cremate 
those  corpses  which  poison  his  originality.  Mr. 
Balfour  retires  from  public  leadership,  explaining 
that  politics  have  become  so  complicated  that  he  is 
unable  to  understand  them  any  longer,  and  must 
delegate  that  task  to  Mr.  Bonar  Law.  Not  inappro- 
priately he  writes  an  article  on  M.   Bergson,  that 

200 


ON  BEING  NARROW-MINDED 

philosopher  of  the  tea-table,  who  has  discarded  the 
understanding  altogether  in  favour  of  the  much  more 
agreeable  faculty  of  intuition. 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  having  set  the  hero  of  his  last 
novel,  "  Marriage,"  thinking  about  modern  life 
through  several  hundred  monologues,  unloaded  on 
a  very  patient  young  lady,  is  obliged  to  send  both 
of  them  to  Labrador  to  cool  their  heads.  It  is 
rumoured  that  Mr.  Shaw  is  about  to  write  to  the 
Times,  explaining  that  he  once — although,  of  course, 
only  once — made  a  mistake.  As  for  Mr.  Belloc  and 
Mr.  Chesterton,  they  may  be  counted  on  to  continue 
wallowing  in  their  respective  humilities  till  the  end 
of  time,  and  probably  well  on  into  eternity. 

Of  the  proved  inadequacy  of  the  thimble  there 
can,  therefore,  be  no  doubt.  In  the  face  of  it,  two 
attitudes  are  possible.  The  first  is  that  of  the  boy 
who,  in  presence  of  the  Christmas  pudding,  is 
plunged  into  the  sourest  pessimism  by  the  discord 
which  manifests  itself  in  him  between  desire  and 
capacity.  The  other  is  that  of  M.  Renan,  who,  on 
leaving  the  great  Paris  Exhibition  in  which,  in 
glittering  avenue  after  avenue,  the  glory  of  civiliza- 
tion had  filled  his  eyes,  exclaimed:  " Mon  Dieul 
How  many  exquisite  things  there  are  which  one  can 
do  without!"  Our  choice  lies  between  the  dis- 
tended depression  of  the  schoolboy  and  the  smiling 
asceticism  of  M.  Renan :  the  former  is,  I  fear,  more 
typical  of  our  time. 

Indeed,  most  of  our  contemporaries  are  infinitely 
angry  at  not  being  infinite.  So  much  happiness, 
so  much  exultant  life,  and  they  are  allowed  to  drink 
only  some  of  it — not  all !  Such  a  bewildering  multi- 
plicity of  books,  of  people,  and  they  are  suffered  to 
dip  a  mere  liqueur  glass  out  of  the  ocean  !  When 
Professor  Schafer  does  produce  his  frog,  these 
gourmands  of  experience  will  envy  the  unhappy 
animal  his  froggishness — a  whole  area  of  sensation 
from  which  they  are  shut  out.     This  crowded  com- 

201 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

plexity  of  life  has  touched  many  of  our  finest  minds. 
It  tortures  Mr.  Wells  with  a  metaphysical  headache. 
It  so  affects  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  that  in  his  recent 
novels,  if  the  hero  meets  a  policeman  and  a  porter 
at  a  railway  station,  you  may  safely  expect  a  foot- 
note or  an  inset  advertisement  announcing  that  in 
1914  Mr.  Bennett  will  publish,  in  a  further  supple- 
mentary novel,  the  spiritual  history  of  the  police- 
man, and  in  1916  that  of  the  porter. 

The  late  Professor  William  James,  in  his  Inger- 
sol  lecture  on  immortality,  finds  it  facing  him  in  an 
even  grimmer  form.  Since  everybody  is  immortal, 
and  since,  on  his  cheerful  hypothesis,  everybody  is 
going  to  Heaven,  we  are  confronted  with  a  horrible 
prospect  of  Paradisaical  congestion.  But  he  con- 
siderately goes  on  to  observe  that,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  grave,  each  of  us  will  continue  to  exist  only 
as  a  point  of  view,  and  that  you  can  fit  any  number 
of  points  of  view  into  a  given  space,  and  still  more 
into  that  which  confesses  no  bondage  at  all  to  space. 

Great  consolation  for  those  whose  only  trouble 
about  human  life  is  that  there  is  so  much  of  it,  is  to 
be  found  in  three  central  truths  which,  for  the  sake 
of  simplicity,  we  may  call  the  I-ness  of  the  I,  the 
hie  et  nunc-ity  of  consciousness,  and  the  ad  Jwc-ness 
of  action.  Expressed  in  the  obscurer  language  of 
everyday,  this  means  that  you  are  yourself,  mainly 
because  you  are  nobody  else,  and  that  your  parti- 
cular mind  exists  in  a  particular  body  at  a  particular 
time  in  a  particular  place,  with  its  energies  mortgaged 
to  particular  pursuits,  chiefly  that  of  getting  enough 
to  eat.  And,  so  far  from  these  gyves  hampering, 
they  actually  enfranchise  you.  They  may  shut  you 
out  from  the  Riviera,  but  they  admit  you  to  the 
empyrean.  Your  study  window,  however  small,  is 
large  enough  to  contain  the  whole  procession  of  the 
stars,  and  if  you  dig  deep  enough  in  your  back 
garden,  you  will  come  on  the  flaming  genesis  of  the 
world. 

202 


THE   UNIMPORTANCE   OF 
POLITICS 

This  is  no  "  withering  denunciation  "  or  "scathing 
exposure "  of  those  ambassadors  at  the  Court  ot 
Notoriety  whom  we  style  politicians.  Nobody  is 
"  branded  "  in  it  as  a  traitor,  an  anarchist,  an  incendi- 
ary, an  elderly  King's  Counsel,  a  cabbage-headed 
mule,  an  ill-masked  Fenian,  a  certificated  despatch- 
rider,  a  village  ruffian,  or  even  a  disliker  of  legal 
blasphemy.  It  goes  simply  upon  a  large  fact  as  to 
which  there  can  be  no  dispute,  and  asks  whether 
that  fact  is  of  good  or  of  evil  countenance.  The  fact 
in  question  is  that  we  are  all  politicians  now. 
Certain  albino  blotches  do  indeed  run  counter  to 
type,  prigs  for  the  most  part,  but  with  that  excep- 
tion we  are  all  tarred  with  the  same  brush.  Is  the 
brush  too  heavily  charged,  too  industrious  and 
wide-wandering  ?  Do  we  assign  disproportionate 
importance  to  homo  politicus,  with  his  equipment  of 
masks  and  megaphones  ?  Do  we,  in  short,  gesture 
and  bellow  too  much  for  the  good  of  our  souls  ?  It 
cannot  be  too  clearly  understood  that  the  line  of 
approach  to  the  enquiry  is  not  Olympian,  but  con- 
fessional. Any  of  us  is  ready  enough  to  admit  that 
there  are  too  many  of  the  other  kind  of  fellow  about. 
For  me,  the  appearance  of  a  thing  called  Unionism, 
for  instance,  is  numbered  among  the  darkest  and 
least  penetrable  mysteries.  On  the  other  hand  it 
has  long  since  been  suggested  that  the  world  would 
go  much  better  if  Ireland  was  towed  into  mid- 
Atlantic,  and  sunk.  Some  Radicals  could  spare  a 
coronet  or  two  without  tears,   or  indeed  the  whole 

203 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

practice  of  coronetcy  in  general,  while  some  Dukes 
are  convinced  that  there  is  exactly  one  Lloyd- 
George  in  excess  of  requirements.  Such  conclusions 
are  easy  to  reach,  but  they  are  vain.  The  only  real 
problems  are  those  that  concern  the  inner  life,  and 
its  institution  in  wisdom.  And  the  suggestion  of 
this  paper  is  that  we  make  overmuch  of  politics. 
We  cheat  ourselves.  Our  days  are  only  twenty- 
four  hours  broad,  and  not  more  than  sixty  years 
long,  truncated  by  sleep  and  sickness.  We  have, 
as  we  say,  a  terrible  lot  of  things  to  get  through, 
and  if  we  give  to  any  of  them,  and  especially  to  the 
poorer  sort,  too  much  head-tumult  and  heart-break, 
we  are  betrayed  and  undone. 

It  is  necessary  to  begin  by  repudiating  that  view 
which  would  dismiss  politics  as  mere  sham  and  rococo. 
Job  himself  might  well  lose  patience,  as  indeed  he 
did,  with  such  chatter.  The  State  does  not  argue, 
it  imposes  itself.  The  only  sanctuary  of  escape 
from  it  is  the  lunatic  asylum.  It  is  the  raw  material 
in  which  we  have  all  got  to  work,  without  which  we 
can  do  nothing.  The  particular  State  to  which  any 
of  us  belongs  is  a  moment  of  equilibrium,  stable  or 
unstable,  in  the  secular  scuffle  for  the  ownership  of 
the  two  most  real  things  we  know,  land  and  men. 
So  real  is  the  fight  for  these  ingredients  of  welfare 
that  there  is  not  the  least  prospect  of  its  ever  reach- 
ing a  term.  The  porcupine  image,  employed  by 
Schopenhauer,  is  rich  in  suggestion.  Seeing  men 
not  as  trees  walking,  but  as  porcupines  grubbing, 
he  points  out  that  the  task  of  society  is  to  bring  its 
units  so  close  together  that  they  shall  keep  one 
another  warm,  and  to  keep  them  as  far  apart  as  will 
secure  each  against  the  bristling  quills  of  his 
neighbours.  The  process  of  re-arrangement  goes 
on  without  break  or  respite.  Who  is  to  stand 
where?  Each  porcine  group  has  its  own  notion, 
accompanied  by  a  map  with  a  statistical  appendix; 

204 


UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

no  two  maps  agree,  and  there  is  a  continual  stir  of 
hustling  and  shouldering  in  the  mass.  And,  for  all 
their  trouble,  colds  and  blood-letting  are  more 
frequent  than  the  ideal  disposition.  If  you  are  very 
dainty,  you  may  call  the  affair  rather  disreputable, 
and  decidedly  mixed.  Nothing  human  is  alien  from 
that  fate.  But  to  call  it  unreal  would  be  a  sad 
absurdity.  Moreover,  its  scope  is  as  wide  as  civiliza- 
tion. No  provision  has  been  made  for  disinterested 
spectators.  The  Lucretian  tower  of  ivory  was  found, 
when  completed,  to  be  too  frail  for  habitation,  and 
the  judgment-seat  of  Gallio  was  long  since  broken 
up  for  firewood. 

The  first  note  of  politics,  then,  is  not  unreality 
and  remoteness,  but  on  the  contrary,  intimate  and 
dominant  reality.  The  second  is,  beyond  all  doubt, 
unreason.  The  late  William  James  records  the 
inspiration  of  one  of  those  founders  of  minor 
religions,  the  names  of  which  sound  like  a  disease : 
this  prophet  felt  that  "  he  had  fire  enough  in  his 
belly  to  burn  up  all  the  sins  of  the  world."  That  is 
the  sort  of  thing  that  fashions  the  course  of  politics. 
Movements  which  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  not 
exactly  blind  appetites,  but  at  any  rate  Bergsonian 
waves  of  appetency,  accomplish  themselves,  if  they 
have  vitality  enough,  if  not,  they  simply  break  in 
foam,  and  disappear.  In  neither  case  has  reason, 
mere  platform  and  newspaper  reason,  created  the 
event  out  of  its  entrails.  Ireland — if  I  may  again 
use  her  as  an  illustration — has  not  argued  or  even 
fought,  she  has  simply  lived  her  way  back  to  some 
sort  of  autonomy.  I  must  not  be  understood  as 
denying  that  there  is  in  politics  such  a  phenomenon 
as  conversion.  But  it  is  much  more  commonly 
catastrophic  than  discursive.  The  mind  is  not  a 
scientific  balance,  delicately  responsive  to  the 
differential  ounce:  it  is  much  more  like  a  home- 
made bomb  which  quite  dramatically  explodes.     In 

205 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

England  what  usually  happens  is  that  an  elector  sees 
suddenly  that  something  or  other  is  a  damned  shame, 
and  decides  to  vote  the  other  way  next  time.  The 
moving  consideration  may  be,  and  often  is,  trivial, 
irrelevant,  or  dead  :  an  enquirer,  reading  Irish  history 
for  the  first  time,  for  instance,  becomes  a  Home 
Ruler  in  order  to  let  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Oliver 
Cromwell  know  what  he  thinks  of  their  disgusting 
conduct.  But  such  illumination  very  seldom  results 
from  a  course  of  Hansard,  or  systematic  attendance 
at  meetings  of  the  opponent  colour.  Your  typical 
party  leader  does  not  even  aim  at  convincing  his 
enemies,  he  makes  speeches  in  order  to  explain  him- 
self to  his  friends.  And  your  sound  party  man  is  a 
good  deal  more  of  the  mystic  than  of  the  rationalist. 
Loyalty,  to  him,  consists  in  accepting  not  the  known 
thing  which  his  leader  said  yesterday,  but  the 
unknown  thing  which  he  will  say  to-morrow.  The 
disbelief  in  the  arbitrament  of  reason,  which  lurks 
under  so  many  forms  of  controversy,  finds  by  times 
an  even  franker  expression.  The  gospel  of  violence 
was  never  preached  from  such  high  places,  or  with 
so  confident  a  challenge,  as  in  this  mellow  age  of 
sociology.  Arson  has  become  the  paltriest  of  inci- 
dental by-play.  The  right  of  rebellion  at  haphazard, 
as  one  may  say,  has  received  ceremonial  sanction  at 
the  very  fountain-head  of  law. 

These  facts  may  please  or  displease  us,  but  at  any 
rate  they  are  facts.  And,  whether  pleased  or  not,  a 
prudent  man  will  adjust  himself  to  facts.  What  is 
the  general  scheme  of  our  adjustment?  Mainly 
noise.  We  have  with  loving  care  created  an  appa- 
ratus of  clamour  from  which  none  can  escape,  to 
which  none  can  listen  without  the  gravest  disturbance 
of  judgment.  We  all  shout  so  loudly  that  nobody 
hears  his  own  voice.  We  wallow  in  a  sea  of  leading 
articles.  We  cram  ourselves  into  drab  and  draughty 
halls,  we  slap  our  knees  in  railway-carriages,  we  rattle 

206 


UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

the  plates  at  dinner  with  dialectic  vehemence,  we 
sleep  on   the   preparation    of    nasty   epigrams,   we 
muddy  our  souls  with  that  form  of  art  known  as 
the  "thumping    poster."     It   is   necessary   for   our 
comfort  that  our  opponents   should  be   daily  con- 
victed, not  only  of  scoundrelism  wholesale,  but  of 
scoundrelism  retail.     Every  day  must  furnish  a  new 
crisis,    and   an  unprecedented  betrayal.     No  Shop 
Hours  Act  shall  procure  them  a  half-day's  respite  ; 
the  peace  of  Sunday  itself  would  be  intolerable  if  it 
were  not  punctuated  with  thunder.     It  would  be  no 
fantastic  definition  of  an  "  active  politician  "  to  say 
that  he  is  a  man  who  is  always  arguing  with  another 
man,  without  ever   seeing  the  other   man's   point. 
Now  it  may  be  urged  that  this  way  of   going-on 
proves  at  least  that  we  take  politics  seriously,  and 
treat  it  with  respect  due  to  it  as  the  most  important 
of  secular  realities.    But  in  fact  it  proves  the  contrary. 
The   true   human    response  to   real   things    is   not 
garrulity,    but    action.     People   who    talk    daggers 
incessantly  do  not,  as  a  rule,  use  even  bodkins.  And 
if  the  excessive  word  is,  in   general,  at  enmity  with 
the   necessary  deed,  there   are  features  even  more 
disabling  in   the    special   case  with   which  we   are 
occupied.     It  is  the  old  story  of  destroying  emphasis 
by  emphasizing  everything.     We  have  all  met  the 
student  who  does  not  feel  at  home  with  his  text- 
book until  he  has  underlined  every  sentence  in  it. 
Political  controversy — one  had  better  say  gladiator- 
dom — is  deeply  infected  with  the  same  illusion.     All 
the  little  fishes  in  it  talk  like  whales.     The  youngest 
of    us    has    lived    through    such    a    succession    of 
"tremendous   crises"  and  "turning  points   in    the 
march  of  progress,"  he  has  seen  the  "  final  ruin  of 
the  Empire  "  accomplished,  "civilization  outraged" 
and  "  purity  of  administration  poisoned  at  its  very 
source"  so  often,  and  on  the  other  hand,  has  parti- 
cipated in  so  many  of  the  "  greatest  steps  forward  in 

207 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

our  time  and  generation"  that  he  has  become,  or 
ought  to  have  become,  somewhat  critical  and  even 
callous.  The  schoolboy  who  had  been  to  Julius 
Ccesar  expressed  himself  as  jolly  glad  that  he  had 
not  been  born  in  ancient  Rome:  it  was  blank  verse 
all  the  time,  and  he  was  sure  that  he  never  could 
have  managed  it.  It  is  just  as  severe  a  tax  on  the 
ordinary  mind  to  live  in  a  political  world  in  which 
it  is  Armageddon  or  the  New  Jerusalem  all  the  time. 
If  garrulity,  then,  weakens  the  faculty  and 
debauches  the  aim  of  action,  can  it  be  justified  on 
the  ground  that  it  makes  converts?  Even  if  this 
plea  be  stated  at  its  strongest  it  will  not,  I  think,  be 
found  adequate :  the  size  of  the  crop  is  no  return  for 
the  seed  scattered,  and  the  cost  of  the  sowing.  The 
process  of  conversion  is,  as  has  been  suggested,  freaky, 
erratic,  and  not  reducible  to  any  clear  principles  of 
causation.  The  man  who  is  led  to  change  sides  by 
a  little  silent,  stiff  reading  of  books  must  not  be 
credited  as  a  gain  to  the  diurnal  apparatus  of  contro- 
versy with  which  we  are  now  dealing.  That  forbids 
silence,  and  does  not  express  itself  in  the  spacious 
solidity  of  books.  Indeed,  English  literature,  so  rich 
in  everything  else,  is  singularly  poor  in  what  may 
be  called  books  of  induction  into  politics.  Other 
turnovers  are  referable  to  other  motives.  An  elector 
will  discover,  for  instance,  that  the  leaders  of  his 
party  have  expunged  the  not  from  a  commandment 
which  had  previously  been  held  fundamental.  He 
does  not  leave  the  party,  the  party  leaves  him.  The 
entrance  of  others  into  the  new  light  is  consequent 
upon  careful  study,  and  a  sound  prognostic,  of  the 
phenomenon  of  feline  saltation.  These  are  not,  in 
the  strict  sense,  converts;  this  point  of  view  is  indeed 
often  pressed  upon  them  with  a  certain  harshness  of 
language.  But  it  ought  to  be  noted  in  their  favour 
that  they  are  among  the  most  trustworthy  of 
politicians.     You  always  know  where  to  find  them  ; 

208 


UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

you  have  only  to  go  to  the  winning  side.  Further 
defections  and  adhesions  are  to  be  ascribed  to  family 
affection.  A  nephew,  or  a  son-in-law,  or  the  son  of 
a  friend,  is  seeking  a  public  career  in  the  opposite 
camp,  and  an  elector,  previously  Blue,  will  vote 
Yellow  in  order  to  give  the  young  fellow  a  leg  up. 
The  damned-shame  theory  will  be  found  to  cover 
most  of  the  remainder,  and  this  involves  a  mystical 
passion  which  is  not  really  explicable  at  all  in  terms 
of  the  platform.  We  must  not,  of  course,  ignore  the 
cardinal  consideration  that  most  people  are  not 
convertible  at  all,  and  are  never  converted.  Things 
go  against  them,  it  is  true,  and  they  are  left  bewailing 
the  wholesomer  past,  and  fighting  a  hopelesss  rear- 
guard action  against  the  triumphant  evil  of  the 
present.  Their  children  growing  up  in  the  shadow 
of  the  accomplished  fact  do  not  have  to  renounce 
the  prejudices  of  their  fathers  :  they  are  simply  born 
on  the  other  side,  and  there  is  an  end  of  the  matter. 
Whether  a  psychology  of  these  processes  can  be 
constructed  is  doubtful :  certainly  they  root  deeply 
in  human  nature.  Every  habit  is  a  sort  of  organic 
Toryism,  every  idea  is  a  Radical,  at  least  in  potentia. 
We  cannot  very  well  get  on  without  some  equipment 
of  both,  and  the  harmony  established  between  them, 
early  or  late,  determines  our  politics.  It  is  not 
established  without  a  struggle.  It  is  not  only  in 
Tartaran  of  Tarascon  that  two  personalities  conflict, 
the  one  calling  to  labour  and  glory,  the  other  to  old 
slippers  and  familiar  delights.  Some  balance  we 
must  reach  between  what  is  and  what  might  be,  and 
most  of  us  reach  it  pretty  soon.  We  attach  ourselves 
to  some  ism,  and  spend  the  rest  of  our  lives  in  dis- 
covering gradually  what  it  means,  and  why  we 
believe  it  to  be  right.  We  certainly  do  not  need, 
morning  and  evening,  tonic  draughts  of  dialectic  to 
confirm  us.    They  do  not  make  our  faith  better,  and 

p  209 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

they  do  keep  us  in  a  fret  of  censoriousness,  a  ferment 
of  self-praise,  which  cannot  be  good  for  anybody. 

Our  hygiene  of  intellect  is  then  demonstrably  at 
fault,  very  much  at  fault.  The  endless  iteration  to 
which  we  decree  ourselves  is  defended  as  a  necessary 
means  of  "  keeping  the  party's  pecker  up."  M. 
Sorel  would,  perhaps,  think  it  more  dignified  to 
speak  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  myth,  or  poetical 
lie,  which,  in  his  interpretation,  inspires  each  group 
to  the  conquest  of  truth.  Some  eager  spirits  cannot 
be  happy  unless  they  are  constantly  "rubbing  it  in," 
as  if  wisdom  was  a  sort  of  embrocation,  and  others 
conceive  their  art  as  a  form  of  hypnotism.  This  last 
is  the  central  aud  common  idea,  and  the  slightest 
examination  of  it  condemns  our  procedure.  Our 
methods  produce  boredom,  and  boredom  happens  to 
be  the  one  condition  of  mind  that  makes  hypnotism 
impossible.  No  one  can  be  hypnotised  without 
intense  concentration  on  his  part,  generated  by 
acute  interest.  And  if  our  conduct  of  the  intellect 
is  foolish,  the  attitude  of  our  wills  is  almost  wicked. 
We  ascribe  to  certain  lines  of  policy — our  own 
programme,  to  wit — a  magic  potency  and  fruitfulness 
which  we  well  know  they  do  not  possess.  We 
deceive  the  young  with  extravagant  hopes,  the  failure 
of  which  plunges  them  into  that  calf-melancholy 
which  they  call  "disillusionment."  We  mislead  the 
poor  with  promises  grossly  in  excess  of  the  limitations 
of  political  reform.  This  is  no  special  vice  of  any 
particular  party;  we  are  all  in  the  same  boat.  There 
is  involved,  be  it  noted,  a  grave  offence  to  human 
nature.  We  reduce  the  integral  man  to  the  status 
of  a  mere  political  unit,  and  we  then  reduce  his 
politics  to  terms  of  a  single  factor.  We  treat  him, 
not  as  a  man,  but  as  an  aspect  of  a  point  of  view. 
The  fiscal  controversy  furnishes  a  clinching  example 
of  this.  We  know  that  external  trade  policy  is  only 
one  element  in  the  complicated  web  of  causation 

210 


UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

that  makes  nations  prosperous  or  miserable.  We 
know  that,  whatever  else  may  be  said  about  the  sort 
of  Protection  proposed,  the  one  thing  certain  is  that 
a  scheme  so  limited  will  not  make  much  difference 
one  way  or  the  other.  But  we  talk  on  both  sides  as 
if  nothing  else  in  the  world  counted,  or  mattered. 
Our  pockets  bulge  with  quack  Utopias  for  sale  to 
the  crowd :  "  Free  Trade  and  big  loaves  for  every- 
body," "Tariff  Reform  and  fine  jobs  for  everybody." 
We  even  insult  other  nations  with  our  rhetoric. 
Germany,  the  United  States,  France,  are  all  Hells 
on  earth  or  Heavens  on  earth  according  to  our  bias: 
none  of  them  is  allowed  to  be  merely  an  earth  on 
earth.  This  habit  of  over-crying  our  goods  is  so 
deeply  enregistered  in  us  that  any  lapse  attracts 
attention.  Our  Irish  realism,  for  instance,  is  over- 
whelmed with  reproaches.  English  observers  are 
shocked  or,  as  the  case  may  be,  exultant  at  what 
they  call  our  lack  of  enthusiasm  at  the  approach  of 
Home  Rule.  They  expect  rhapsodies  and  sunbursts, 
and  are  bewildered  to  find  only  very  earnest  discus- 
sions of  the  probable  influence  of  autonomy  on 
taxation  and  tweed,  on  bad  roads  and  the  beef 
export.  Every  sin  against  the  set  limits  of  life,  every 
breaking  of  bounds  by  the  practical  imagination, 
carries  its  own  retribution  with  it.  In  the  present 
instance  the  penalty  is  heavy.  It  consists  in  the 
ruling  out  of  politics  of  the  experimental  method, 
and  this  is  a  great  misfortune.  For  the  normal  man 
is  not,  of  his  own  choice,  a  prophet.  Faced  with 
one  of  those  vast  and  serious  problems  of  our  intricate 
modern  life,  his  own  impulse  would  lead  him  to  try 
some  solution,  to  see  how  it  worked,  and  to  learn 
from  experience.  Such  scientific  modesty  is  not 
permitted  us.  The  politician  who  does  not  dogmatize 
in  advance  of  the  facts  islost.  Successistothemanwho 
is  more  cocksure  about  everything  than  anybody  ought 
to  be  about  anything.     The  Myth  exacts  its  sacrifices. 

211 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

Is  there  to  be  discerned  any  promise  of  relief?  It 
may,  I  think,  be  said  that  there  is  a  glimmer,  faint 
but  perceptible.  The  first  condition  of  a  cure  is 
certainly  present,  namely,  a  realization  of  the  fact 
of  disease.  There  is  a  general,  vague  sense  of 
malaise,  a  feeling  that  the  place  of  politics  in  the 
communal  life  is  not  what  it  was,  and  that  new 
adjustments  are  necessary.  The  suggestion  appears 
in  many  shapes,  some  of  them  extremely  question- 
able. The  protest,  or  rather,  the  riot  in  ink  associated 
with  the  names  of  Mr.  Belloc  and  the  Messrs. 
Chesterton,  is  perhaps  the  most  respectable,  although 
it  is  by  no  means  tiresomely  respectable.  Men  of 
true  literary  genius  are  nearly  always  feverish  and 
incompetent  politicians,  and  these  men  of  genius 
have  not  escaped  the  laws  of  their  temperament. 
No  movement  was  ever  before  so  brilliantly,  and  so 
variously  wrong.  Their  campaign  is  wrong  in 
principle,  in  aim,  in  method,  and  in  temper.  I 
doubt  whether  their  followers  understand  in  any 
sort  of  vital  way  the  full  menace  and  horror  of  their 
programme.  Roughly  it  amounts  to  an  assertion 
that  the  ordinary  citizen  is  insufficiently  interested 
in  the  conduct  of  the  State.  At  present  he  spends 
only  about  half  his  spare  time  talking  politics;  in 
future  he  must  so  spend  it  all.  He  must  follow, 
clause  by  clause,  the  business  of  Parliament,  instant 
to  detect  tyranny  in  a  comma,  and  enslavement  in 
a  schedule.  The  party  system — that  convenient 
canalization  of  political  effort — must  disappear. 
Every  voter  must  be  his  own  leader :  he  must  whip 
himself  up  every  day  to  whatever  scratch  dominates 
his  conscience  for  the  time  being.  As  for  his  general 
attitude  towards  Parliament  and  the  members  of  it, 
instruction  in  detail  cannot  be  given,  but  it  must  be 
one  of  contempt.  Only  thus  can  the  people  enter 
into  its  heritage.  Such  a  programme  affects  me  like 
something  half  way  between  a  pantomime   and    a 

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UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

nightmare.  It  stupefies,  it  overwhelms.  And  why 
has  it  been  formulated  ?  Because  Mr.  Belloc  dis- 
covered that  Ministers  sometimes  promote  their 
relatives,  and  Mr.  Chesterton  discovered  that  they 
sometimes  dip  their  pannikins  into  the  milky  flood 
of  the  Stock  Exchange.  To  strike  upon  a  motive 
so  trivial  was  bad  enough  ;  still  worse  is  it  that  the 
blow  should  have  come  from  Brutus.  One  could 
understand  a  machine-shop  Socialist  like  Mr.  Wells, 
whose  very  dreams  must  glisten  like  polished  steel, 
kicking  his  world  to  pieces  because  a  few  specks  of 
dust  have  got  into  the  mechanism.  But  Mr.  Belloc 
and  Mr.  Chesterton  cannot  do  so  without  a  complete 
abandonment  of  their  philosophy.  The  very  spiritual 
essence  of  them  was  that  they  spoke  up  for  the 
warm,  fallible,  and  human  man  against  the  bloodless- 
perfect  phantasms  and  categories.  And  now  they 
suddenly  denounce  walking  because  you  cannot  walk 
without  compromising  the  unsullied  cleanness  of 
your  boots.  Losing  a  ship  for  the  lack  of  a 
ha'porth  of  tar  was  nothing  to  this :  they  desert 
the  ship  because  a  few  drops  of  tar  have  been  spilled 
on  her  snowy  deck.  Coventry  Patmore  says  some- 
where that  belief  in  man's  perfectability  on  earth  is 
the  last  proof  of  insanity.  That  is  sound  Catholic 
doctrine,  full  of  good  sense  and  intelligent  humility. 
Nobody  knows  better  than  the  authors  of  the  League 
for  Clean  Government  that  there  never  existed,  and 
never  will  exist,  in  this  world  an  absolutely  clean 
government.  There  runs  through  the  whole  of  the 
material  a  certain  obvious  flaw  which  inhibits  any 
such  ideal  sculptor — that  flaw  which  is  known  to  the 
highest  science  as  Original  Sin.  The  devil  is  not 
dead,  and  he  does  not  neglect  his  business.  Where- 
ever  you  look,  whether  in  the  State  or  in  the  human 
organization  of  the  Church,  you  are  bound  to  find 
a  leaven  of  corruption.  To  suggest  that  in  our 
time,  and  not  before  it,  this  leaven  has  become  more 

213 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

noticeable  and  more  dangerous  is  a  flat  denial  of 
facts  of  which  neither  Mr.  Belloc  nor  the  Messrs. 
Chesterton  would  be  guilty.  One  must  reluctantly 
charge  them  with  the  gravest  of  all  political  offences  : 
they  have  disturbed  the  soul  of  youth  with  impossible 
dreams.  They  have  committed  high  treason  against 
the  decent  finitude  of  life.  To  the  workers,  rejoic- 
ing in  their  newly-won  safeguard  against  destitution, 
they  have  cried  out  a  learned  jeer  about  bread  and 
circuses:  by  telling  men  authoritatively  that  they 
were  slaves  they  have  in  truth  enslaved  them.  These 
are  sad  divagations,  and  they  point  to  a  future  even 
more  sinister.  Let  Mr.  Gilbert  Chesterton  keep 
company  for  even  a  little  longer  with  these  inhuman 
cleannesses,  and  he  will  end  up  as  President  of  the 
Eugenic  Society.  His  brother  will  likely  become 
not  merely  a  Dickensian,  but  a  real  barrister.  Mr. 
Belloc,  who  is  an  excellent  economist,  will  wake  up 
to  find  himself  promoting  a  company  to  suppress 
company  promoting. 

The  truth  is  that  the  party  machine  is  necessary, 
and  that  it  is  very  far  from  being  a  necessary  evil. 
Only  by  acceptance,  and  the  right  use  of  it,  can  the 
ordinary  citizen  hope  to  live  at  his  maximum  of  poli- 
tical efficiency,  and  at  the  same  time  keep  something 
of  himself  for  that  more  secret  spiritual  activity 
which,  for  lack  of  a  better  name,  is  called  culture. 
If  political  life  is  to  continue  at  all,  bodies  of  men 
must  agree  to  act  together.  The  moment  they 
decide  on  such  general  action — naturally  on  the 
basis  of  ideas  held  in  common — a  party  organization 
creates  itself.  A  constitution,  officers,  committees, 
inner  committees  spring  almost  spontaneously  into 
existence.  The  subscriptions  that  needs  must  be 
levied  generate  that  awful  fact,  a  party  fund.  What 
is  there  to  quarrel  with  ?  For  any  individual  mem- 
ber of  such  a  body  to  complain  that  he  cannot 
express  through  it  his  whole  mind  and  temperament 

214 


UNIMPORTANCE  OF  POLITICS 

is  absurd:  it  is  like  condemning  a  garden  spade 
because  you  cannot  shave  with  it.  There  is  no 
foreshortening,  and  no  oppression  of  conscience. 
Matters  on  which  we  differ  are  left  outside,  as  not 
relevant  to  our  limited  and  special  purpose.  And 
party  programmes  are  not  static  formulae,  but 
organic  growths.  If  it  seems  to  us  that  ours  ought 
to  develop  in  certain  directions  it  is  our  task  to 
explain,  to  argue,  to  canvass,  to  force  our  new  ideas 
into  it  by  the  pressure  of  vitality.  Contempt  for 
the  technical  forms,  under  which  laws  are  both  made 
and  administered,  is  a  wholesome  exuberance  of  the 
young.  It  helps  to  preserve  the  spirit  from  the  letter 
that  kills,  but  it  does  not  affect  the  clear  necessity 
for  some  sort  of  letter.  Ritual  is  of  the  essence  of 
social  organization.  An  anarchist  may  deny  all 
authority,  but  you  cannot  have  a  meeting  of 
anarchists  without  a  chairman  set  in  authority  over 
it.  Contempt  for  politicians,  for  the  type  of  person- 
ality produced  by  their  calling,  is  a  still  poorer 
foundation.  It  is  significant  that  the  only  skilled 
pursuit  in  which  the  amateur  sneers  at  the  pro- 
fessional is  politics.  The  sneer  is,  moreover,  wholly 
unjustified.  The  ethical  level  of  contemporary 
"professional"  politics  is  certainly  higher  than 
that  of  contemporary  business;  its  intellectual  level 
is  certainly  higher  than  that  of  contemporary  litera- 
ture. And,  of  the  three,  the  public  man  has  the 
hardest  task  set  him.  He  is  the  only  citizen  who 
is  obliged  to  choose  omniscience  for  his  specialism. 
The  nature  of  the  relationship  binding  him  to  his 
constituents  is  one  of  the  most  baffling  cases  in 
casuistry,  and  it  is  for  him  an  acute  and  daily 
problem.  No  other  man  is  asked  to  drive  so  difficult 
a  pair  of  chariot-horses  as  his  of  private  ambition 
and  public  duty.  We  must  not  idealize,  but  to  me 
he  seems  to  make  rather  a  better  hand  of  his  exact- 
ing trade  than  we  make  of  ours.     It  is  the  fashion 

215 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

to  speak  of  the  qualities  requisite  for  political  life 
as  altogether  paltry  and  undistinguished.  M. 
Clemenceau,  for  instance,  when  asked  the  other 
day  what  were  the  claims  of  M.  Doumergue  to  the 
Premiership,  replied  :  "  He  has  a  very  loud  voice." 
But  aptitude,  ranging  from  average  talent  to  decisive 
genius,  is  a  force  just  as  dominant  and  unmistakable 
in  the  profession  of  politics  as  in  any  other.  The 
contention  that  the  pecuniary  rewards  are  extra- 
vagant cannot  be  treated  seriously.  You  can  have 
two  Members  of  Parliament  at  the  nominal  cost  of 
one  middling  Civil  Servant,  and  at  a  much  lower 
real  cost.  A  greed  that  is  satisfied  with  £400  a 
year  is  much  too  modest  to  be  dangerous. 

The  politician  invites  ridicule  when  with  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  he  calls  himself  the  priest  of  humanity.  If 
his  function  sometimes  approaches  the  sacerdotal, 
it  bears,  at  other  times,  a  strong  resemblance  to 
that  of  the  scavenger.  It  is  a  specialized  calling, 
made  necessary  by  our  complex  civilization,  no 
better  and  no  worse  than  any  other.  You  become 
master  of  the  masters  of  it  not  by  barren  abuse,  but 
by  fruitful  acceptance.  In  my  native  city  it  used 
to  be  a  bye-word  of  folly  that  a  man  should  hire  a 
cab  and  run  after  it.  There  is  no  better  wisdom  in 
creating  a  highly  articulated  system  of  delegation, 
conference,  and  enactment,  and  then  proceeding  to 
do  personally  the  work  that  we  have  deputized. 
That  citizen  economizes  his  energy  best,  who  con- 
cerns himself  only  with  large  principles,  and  leaves 
to  his  appropriate  specialist  all  matters  of  technique. 
There  is  involved  no  peril  to  freedom.  The  "  insolence 
of  elected  persons  "  which  angered  Walt  Whitman 
is  not  in  truth  formidable.  Go  beyond  their  time 
they  cannot,  and,  if  they  go  beyond  their  programme, 
the  evil  can  only  be  temporary.  The  community  at 
large  is  amply  protected,  protected  above  all  by  that 
very   palladium    of    liberty,   the    Right    to   Yawn. 

216 


UNIMPORTANCE,  OF  POLITICS 

Freezing,  which  is  merely  the  yawn  of  water,  will 
crumble  any  rock.  Gulliver,  in  the  fable,  delivers 
himself  from  the  mesh  woven  about  his  sleep  by  the 
Liliputians  by  the  simple  process  of  stretching  him- 
self. The  national  organism  best  repels  outrage  not 
by  incessant  twitchings,  but  by  long,  receptive, 
silent  accumulations  of  force  duly  discharging 
themselves  in  the  end  in  that  muscular  avalanche  of 
a  yawn  which  is  styled  a  General  Election.  In 
addition  to  this  regimen  there  is,  of  course,  need  also 
of  a  philosophy.  One  does  not  like  to  use  the  term 
pessimism ;  it  is  a  word  that  has  kept  very  queer 
company  in  its  day.  If  you  so  much  as  suggest  that 
you  cannot  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  lugs, 
make  a  pint  pot  hold  a  quart,  or  butter  parsnips  with 
soft  words,  the  odds  are  that  somebody  will  call  you 
a  pessimist,  or  even  a  dyspeptic  crank.  But  it  is 
very  advisable  that,  at  a  reasonably  raw  age,  a  citizen 
should,  like  Arnold,  or  rather  Empedocles,  decide  to 
nurse  no  extravagant  hope.  Politics  can  never  be 
the  architect  of  the  New  Jerusalem :  it  is  not  cut 
out  to  be  much  more  than  a  speculative,  suburban 
builder.  It  is,  as  Lord  Morley  says,  eminently  the 
province  of  the  second  best.  You  cannot  do  any- 
thing in  it  without  doing  some  harm.  It  is  far  from 
being  a  patent  specific  against  all  the  ills  that  human 
hearts  endure.  Used  in  the  way  suggested  it  will 
give  us  a  world  just  good  enough  to  live  in.  So 
using  it  the  citizen  may  hope  to  approximate  to  a 
frugal  content.  With  hardly  a  pang  of  envy  he  will 
leave  the  Olympus  of  the  illustrated  papers  to  be 
ruled  by  Tango  actresses,  Cabinet  ministers,  authors, 
and  the  more  select  aud  imaginative  criminals.  For 
his  part  he  will  ripen  in  the  joyous  humiliations  of 
marriage,  and  the  dynamic  wisdom  of  the  nursery. 
He  will  devote  himself  to  those  pursuits  by  which 
the  soul  of  man  is  bettered:  a  reduction  of  his  golf 
handicap,  music,  religion,  and   ascetical  control  of 

217 


THE  DAY'S  BURDEN 

the  enlarging  girth.  He  will  have  time  for  picture- 
theatres,  revues,  aviation  meetings,  dinners  to 
distinguished  French  Pagans,  Sir  George  Alexander, 
Mr.  Granville  Barker,  the  Abbey  Players,  and  Miss 
Horniman's  repertory  company.  For  crown  of 
his  happiness,  he  will  also  have  time  to  read  the 
admirable  books  of  Mr.  Belloc,  and  the  two 
Chestertons,  major  and  minor.  He  may  even 
manage,  although  this  is  improbable,  to  keep  within 
say  two  novels'  length  of  Mr.  Eden  Philpotts,  and 
three  of  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  and  to  miss  no  more 
than  four  or  five  masterpieces  of  Mr.  John  Masefield 
in  a  lucky  year.  Upon  this  golden  possibility  I  beg 
humbly  to  conclude. 


218 


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